Israel-based Bank Leumi last week agreed to pay a total of $400 million to resolve charges that it conducted an illegal cross-border scheme to assist U.S. clients in evading federal and state taxes by hiding income and assets in offshore bank accounts in several countries around the world. Bank Leumi Group will pay a total […]

LONDON ― In November, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority announced a settlement in which six banks would be fined a total of $4.3 billion for manipulating the foreign-exchange market. And yet share prices barely reacted. Why? The nefarious practices and management failings uncovered during the yearlong investigation that led to the fines were shocking. […]

The U.S. Federal Reserve ordered Commerzbank AG and its U.S. branch on Thursday to hire an independent consultant to help the German bank clean up its internal anti-money laundering programs. The Fed and the bank first entered into an agreement in June 2012 that required Commerzbank to improve compliance in its bulk cash transactions business. […]

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) conducted AML/CFT (Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism) inspections at Absa Bank Limited (Absa), FirstRand Bank Limited (FirstRand), Nedbank Limited (Nedbank), and The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited (Standard Bank). In terms of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, No. 38 of 2001 (FICA), the SARB is […]

A DIRECTOR of a local insurance broker has been fined £200,000 by the regulator – the maximum financial punishment with in the Guernsey Financial Services Commission’s power.  David Merrien, of Guernsey Insurance Brokers Ltd, has also been banned from carrying out any functions within the regulated sectors of the Bailiwick. The punishments were imposed after […]

On 30 October 2014 the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (“the Commission”) imposed a financial penalty of £70,000 under Section 11D of the Financial Services Commission Law on Ahli United Bank (UK) PLC, Guernsey Branch (the Licensee) and made a public statement under Section 11C of the Financial Services Commission Law. The background to these decisions […]

It has been reported in The TIMES (UK) today (4 Nov 201) that HSBC is hiring 100 compliance officers a week. It was reported that 1. Stuart Gulliver, the chief executive, revealed that he had hired 1,400 extra people in risk and compliance in the third quarter alone as the bank grapples with conduct issues […]

JPMorgan (JPM.N), UBS (UBSN.VX) and Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) were fined a total of 94 million euros ($120 million) by the European Commission for taking part in cartels in the financial sector. The Commission handed JPMorgan a 61.7-million-euro fine for rigging the Swiss franc Libor benchmark interest rate between March 2008 and July 2009. It was […]