Barclays to pay $97 million to settle U.S. charges it overbilled clients

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barclays PLC will pay more than $97 million to settle civil charges that it overbilled its asset management business clients for tens of millions of dollars, U.S. regulators said on Wednesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Barclays settled the matter without admitting or denying the charges, which allege that it collected excess mutual fund sales charges, charged fees for services that were not properly rendered and made numerous other billing errors.

A spokesman for Barclays declined to comment.

All told, the SEC said that Barclays overbilled customers by about $50 million.

In one case, more than 2,000 clients paid for due diligence and other monitoring services that were not performed as they were represented.

Another 63 brokerage clients paid excess mutual fund sales charges because the SEC said Barclays recommended they be put into more expensive share classes when less expensive ones were available.

The remaining 22,138 accounts, meanwhile, paid more due to miscalculations and billing errors.

“Each set of clients who were harmed are being refunded through the settlement," said C. Dabney O'Riordan, the co-chief of the SEC's asset management enforcement unit.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Tom Brown)

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