taida_tianci

Forgive me for using English here.

The basic problem is that the new broker is receiving payments for research that it did not provide.  Because the resource allocation is for research, not for acquiring new portfolios, it should not be given to the broker.

The comment is that she should talk to her supervisor (more) and also potentially with her firm's compliance department.  The last sentence suggests that at the same time she is talking with compliance, she should encourage her firm to make the relationship between its payments and the business coming from the broker clear.

taida_tianci

We don't have enough information to determine if there would be an ethical breach if the broker were not being paid from the research budget.  The question is pretty specific that the misconduct is mislabeling it as research, so just focus on that portion.