The Independent reports:

Wall Street accepted harsh and humiliating punishment for sins of greed and fraud last night as federal regulators unveiled the final details of a sweeping $1.4bn (£880m) settlement with 10 leading brokerage houses and announced life-time bans from the industry on two star analysts of the late-Nineties hi-tech boom.

The débâcle, which has turned into one of the darkest periods in the history of Wall Street, centred on revelations that research departments were regularly biased in their assessment of stocks. Specifically, analysts were found guilty of exaggerating the virtue of stocks in the hope of winning new investment banking for their firms. The banks thus regularly skewed research to benefit their bottom line while misleading small investors.

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The other banks involved in the settlement were including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, UBS, JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp's Piper Jaffray.