SEC Staff Reportedly Ready to Seek Prudential Charges : Investments: Sources say at least seven former executives may be targeted. The recommended charges are said to involve securities law violations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement staff intends to recommend that civil charges be filed against former executives with Prudential Securities, including former Chairman George L. Ball, according to a report in the New York Times.

Citing unnamed people with knowledge of the inquiry, the newspaper said that charges would be recommended against at least seven former Prudential executives and brokers. The recommended charges involve securities law violations at Prudential’s Dallas branch during the 1980s and early ‘90s, it said.

The charges the SEC plans to recommend allege that the executives failed to properly supervise brokers, who violated securities laws through abusive sales practices, according to the report.

Prudential has already paid out more than $700 million to settle investigations brought by the SEC and the U.S. attorney’s office concerning fraudulent sales practices in the 1980s of investments known as limited partnerships.

The firm has also paid out millions to settle private lawsuits and arbitrations, in which investors alleged that they were sold investments that were unsuitable for their level of expertise.

SEC spokesman Michael Jones, reached Wednesday night, told Associated Press that the agency would have no comment on the report. Ball’s attorney, Michael Armstrong, told Associated Press that he also would not comment.

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At the SEC, the commission’s staff investigates a case and brings a recommendation before the appointed five-member commission, which votes on whether charges should be filed. After receiving such approval, the SEC staff then files charges, usually in federal court.

No such charges have been filed by the SEC against individuals in the Prudential case.