SEC v. Knight Capital Americas LLC (2013)

Settled

Checked against the primary document on October 3, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In October 2013 the Securities and Exchange Commission settled an administrative order with Knight Capital Americas, finding that it lacked market-access risk controls when a routing error on August 1, 2012 sent millions of unintended orders. The order imposes a $12 million penalty.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	34-70694
Date filed	2013-10-16
Date resolved	2013-10-16
Status	settled
Asset class	equities
Venue	NYSE, Nasdaq
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	Knight Capital Americas LLC (entity)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.15(c) ; Regulation SHO (Rules 203 and 204) ; Market Access Rule (Rule 15c3-5) (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: $12m
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: $12m
Alleged gain: —

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on October 16, 2013 as release 34-70694. The respondents named are Knight Capital Americas LLC (0 individuals, 1 entity).

The order finds Knight violated the market access rule (Rule 15c3-5) and that, among the unintended orders, it failed to mark short sales and to obtain locates (Regulation SHO Rules 200(g) and 203(b)). The Regulation SHO findings are a by-product of the software error; no deliberate uncovered short selling is described.

This library does not tag the matter to a manipulation technique. The matter is a market-access controls case arising from a software error, not a naked short selling case.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

Timeline

2013-10-16 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

SEC order

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.