Ex-Employer of GameStop Trader ‘Roaring Kitty’ Fined for Lack of Oversight (Published 2021) (2024)

The insurer MassMutual will pay a $4 million fine as part of a settlement with Massachusetts regulators involving the conduct of Keith Gill, a former employee and online trader known as “Roaring Kitty” whose relentless cheerleading for shares of GameStop was at the heart of the meme-stock mania earlier this year.

State officials who oversee markets said the unit of MassMutual that employed Mr. Gill, who resigned in January, failed to adequately supervise his and other agents’ trading and online activity. Moreover, Mr. Gill was carrying out trades on behalf of three other people not affiliated with MassMutual without the insurer’s approval, the settlement said. The insurer neither admitted nor denied the accusations, but it agreed to the fine as well an independent compliance review and other measures.

“MassMutual is pleased to put this matter behind us, avoiding the expense and distraction associated with protracted litigation,” a spokeswoman said.

Mr. Gill cultivated an online following with over 250 hours of YouTube videos, many of which detailed his views on GameStop, a troubled video game retailer that was once a mainstay of malls but whose stock had languished in recent years. Partly because of Mr. Gill’s focus on the stock, GameStop became a favorite of masses of day traders who loosely organized themselves on Reddit’s WallStreetBets trading message board — where Mr. Gill was also active — and briefly drove the company’s share price up as much as 600 percent within days in late January. GameStop’s stock is currently trading at more than $200, and remains up more than 1,000 percent since the start of the year.