Morgan Stanley
MS
Financials
3
exclusion reasons
3 themes
This page is part of our public exclusion list — a transparency tool that shows which companies we screen out and why. It is not investment advice, and it is not an accusation. But it is subject to change as our understanding of the facts evolves.
Morgan Stanley paid $249M (SEC + DOJ, January 2024) to resolve a multi-year block trading fraud scheme. From 2018–2021, the equity syndicate desk leaked confidential information about impending block trades to select buy-side investors, who pre-positioned with short positions. Morgan Stanley generated over $100M in illicit profits. The firm entered a non-prosecution agreement with DOJ for making false statements. Separately, Morgan Stanley paid $15M (SEC, December 2024) for failing to supervise four financial advisors in Texas and California who stole millions from client accounts through unauthorized ACH payments and wire transfers.
Morgan Stanley paid $35M (SEC, September 2022) for failing to properly dispose of devices containing PII of approximately 15 million customers. The firm hired an unqualified moving company to decommission hard drives; devices were sold online with unencrypted data intact. In a separate incident, 42 servers with unencrypted PII went missing. Additionally, a $1M SEC penalty (2016) followed an employee accessing and transferring data on 730,000 customer accounts to a personal server, which was subsequently hacked. Morgan Stanley failed to maintain reasonable access controls for over 10 years.
Morgan Stanley is a significant financier of the fossil fuel industry. According to the Banking on Climate Chaos reports (Rainforest Action Network et al.), Morgan Stanley has provided more than $183 billion in cumulative fossil fuel financing since the 2016 Paris Agreement, making it the 15th largest private financier of fossil fuels globally. The bank is also the 6th largest financier of fracked methane gas. From 2022 to 2023, Morgan Stanley increased its annual fossil fuel financing from $14.7 billion to $19.1 billion, despite its public 2021 commitment to reach net-zero financed emissions by 2050. Morgan Stanley remains among the top U.S. banks dominating the fracking sector alongside JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup.
Research Sources
3 organizations
Related Exclusions
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Companies appear on our exclusion list based on our investment judgment — not because they've done anything illegal. This is a difference of values and opinion, not an accusation of wrongdoing. Exclusion does not constitute a recommendation against investing in any company, and absence from the list does not constitute a recommendation to invest.
This information is provided for educational and transparency purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment advice. Data is drawn from independent watchdogs, NGOs, government registries, and Ethical Capital's ongoing research — see Research Sources for the full list.
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