U.S. securities regulators and Wedbush Securities Inc are close to settling charges alleging the California-based brokerage firm had shoddy risk controls that let foreign traders access the market, according to a regulatory court filing. The filing, made public on Wednesday by Securities and Exchange Commission Administrative Law Judge Carol Fox Foelak, comes just a few weeks before Wedbush was set to fight the charges in an SEC court hearing in Los Angeles. According to the filing, the SEC, Wedbush and Jeffrey Bell, a former vice president who oversaw the market access business, and Christina Fillhart, current senior vice president, "have reached an agreement in principle to settle on all major terms in the matter." The SEC in June accused Wedbush, one of the largest firms by trading volume on the Nasdaq exchange, with violating so-called market access rules. Those rules require brokerages that provide customers with direct access to the market to have reasonable controls in
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