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Robinhood to pay $70m in settlement with watchdog

Online brokerage faulted for missteps related to options trading and tech outages

Robinhood Financial LLC has agreed to pay nearly $70m to resolve sweeping regulatory allegations that the brokerage misled customers, approved ineligible traders for risky strategies and didn’t supervise technology that failed and locked millions out of trading.

The enforcement action is a blow to the fast-growing online brokerage, which was launched in 2014 and has won over users with commission-free trades and its sleek mobile app. The company took on millions of new customers and attracted more scrutiny this year as many investors accessed Robinhood to speculate on so-called meme stocks such as GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. Its forthcoming initial public offering is one of the most anticipated of the year.

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