The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) has fined Robertson Stephens and former investment banker Richard Davies $350,000 (€287,168) for threatening to cease coverage of a biotech company unless it paid out $1m in investment banking fees.

According to NASD, Davies told an official from ResMed, a Californian respiratory-device company, that he would stop covering the company unless ResMed paid the US bank $1m to act as a secondary manager to a planned convertible bond offering in 2001.