P.M. BRIEFING : Spain May Fine Drexel $555,000

MADRID —  Spain’s new watchdog securities body recommended today that the Madrid branch of U.S. brokerage house Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. be fined 65 million pesetas ($555,000) for alleged stock trading malpractice.

The National Securities Market commission said it had decided to propose the sanction--five times the gross profits obtained from Drexel’s intervention in the sale of a state oil company--to the Ministry of Economy.

Drexel, which has pleaded guilty to six felony charges in New York in an insider trading case, closed its Madrid office, DBL Capital Markets Espana SA, in July when the commission began its investigation into alleged irregularities in the partial privatization of state oil group Repsol SA in May.