Judgment Approaches for Wall Street

Friday could be judgment day on Wall Street.

That's when securities regulators will start telling 10 securities firms just how much they might have to pay to settle the investigations into their bull market business practices.

And some of the firms could be in for a big surprise. Sources tell TheStreet.com that regulators will seek penalties ranging from as low as $25 million to as high as $500 million.

It's believed New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer will push for the maximum penalty on Citigroup (C Quote) when his representatives meet Friday with lawyers for the nation's biggest financial services firm. For more than six months, Spitzer's office has been looking into a variety of allegations involving Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney investment banking division.

Meanwhile, in Boston

Friday also may be a bad day for Credit Suisse First Boston, which is slated to learn how much it might have to shell out when it meets with representatives for Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin. Last month, Galvin's office filed a civil complaint against CSFB, charging the firm with issuing "tainted" and "corrupted" research.

Sources says regulators are pushing for the biggest fines against CSFB and Citigroup and lesser penalties against the other firms, which are scheduled to meet with other regulators early next week. A final deal, however, looks unlikely before Thanskgiving.

Officials for the regulators and Wall Street firms either declined to comment or couldn't be reached.

Unfinalized

The sources note that the numbers being bandied around could be bargaining chips and not the final agreed-upon sums. The money paid by the firms could go into a restitution fund for investors who claim they were misled by Wall Street's overly bullish and possibly tainted stock research.

Regulators have been discussing the amounts of the fines to be assessed in a series of meetings and telephone conferences over the past few days, involving representatives from Spitzer's office, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the NASD and the North American Securities Administrators Association.