On April 6, 2011, pursuant to Section 36a-411 of the Connecticut General Statutes, the Commissioner approved the acquisition by First Niagara Financial Group, Inc., a bank holding company with its principal place of business in New York, for the acquisition of 100 percent of the issued and outstanding voting stock of NewAlliance Bancshares, Inc., a bank holding company, and indirectly of NewAlliance Bank, a Connecticut bank, and, pursuant to Section 36a-185 of the Connecticut General Statutes, issued a notice of intent not to disapprove such acquisition.  Also on April 6, 2011, the Commissioner, pursuant to Section 36a-412(a)(1) of the Connecticut General Statutes,  approved the merger of NewAlliance Bank with and into First Niagara Bank, N.A.

On April 6, 2011, the Banking Commissioner entered a Consent Order with respect to Merrill Lynch Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, a Connecticut-registered broker-dealer having its principal office at One Bryant Park, New York, New York.  The Consent Order was an outgrowth of a multistate investigation into the firm’s registration of its Client Associates and its related supervisory controls over those individuals.  The Consent Order found that, in permitting unregistered personnel to sell securities in Connecticut, the firm violated Section 36b-6(b) of the Connecticut Uniform Securities Act and Section 36b-31-6f(b) of the Regulations thereunder.   In furtherance of its desire to resolve the matter informally with the department, the firm represented that it would 1) maintain a trade monitoring system to prevent the entry of client orders originating from jurisdictions where the person accepting the order was not appropriately registered; and 2) file a report with the Commissioner describing the firm’s improvements in its ability to monitor the identity and registration status of each person accepting a client order entered on the firm’s trading system.

The Consent Order directed the firm to cease and desist from regulatory violations and to remit $359,100 to the department as a fine and reimbursement for past due agent registration fees.