SECURITIES

SEC Vacates Sanctions Against Mulheren: John A. Mulheren Jr., the flamboyant stock speculator accused by Ivan F. Boesky of participating in a stock manipulation scheme, is free to return to the securities business. The SEC said it was vacating a previous sanction against Mulheren, whose conviction on conspiracy and securities fraud charges was overturned on appeal. Mulheren, 42, of Rumson, N.J., was sentenced in November, 1990, to a year and a day in prison and fined $1.6 million after he was convicted of having helped Boesky--one of the central figures in Wall Street’s biggest insider trading scandal--drive up the price of Gulf & Western Inc. stock in 1985. But the conviction on conspiracy and three counts of securities fraud was reversed and dismissed by an appeals court in New York in July.