Bloomberg to Pay $5 Million for Misleading Disclosures About Its Valuation Methodologies for Fixed Income Securities

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against Bloomberg Finance L.P. (Bloomberg) for misleading disclosures relating to its paid subscription service, BVAL, which provides daily price valuations for fixed-income securities to financial services entities. The SEC’s order finds that from at least 2016 through October 2022, Bloomberg failed to disclose to its BVAL customers that the valuations for certain fixed-income securities could be based on a single data input, such as a broker quote, which did not adhere to methodologies it had previously disclosed. The order finds that Bloomberg was aware that its customers, including mutual funds, may utilize BVAL prices to determine fund asset valuations, including for valuing fund investments in government, supranational, agency, and corporate bonds, municipal bonds and securitized products, and that BVAL prices, therefore, can have an impact on the price at which securities are offered or traded.