Merrill Lynch to cough up $8.5M to Florida over auction-rate securities

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. will pay Florida $8.5 million to settle claims that the brokerage firm's financial advisers misled their clients about auction-rate securities, according to a report in the Orlando Sentinel. The agreement will settle allegations that Merrill's adviser positioned auction-rate securities as secure investment vehicles that were essentially as safe as cash. In February 2008, the auction-rate market collapsed, and investors were left with illiquid holdings. Merrill's agreement with Florida is the state's portion of a $125 million settlement reached with the North American Securities Administrators Association Inc. last August to resolve a national investigation into the sales of such securities.