MyComplianceOffice Blog

In January 2022, Hong Kong’s financial-markets regulator fined a large Asian Bank HK$348.25m ($44.7m) for misconduct on some of the bank’s equities-trading desks between 2008 and 2018. The regulator concluded that the bank was using deceptive practices to increase its market share and business, in addition to breaking the trust of clients.

During the webinar Conduct, Compliance and Ethics in Capital Markets, an executive panel with speakers from FINRA, Northern Trust Corporation, MCO and Greenwich Associates discussed how technology and data management are key to an effective conduct risk strategy.

The rise of the Omicron variant has seen many large financial services firms postponing return to office plans. With remote and hybrid employees now the norm, the pandemic has already changed the way large financial services firms work.

What has this meant for conduct oversight?

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released it’s report of enforcement actions for their fiscal year 2021 ending on September 30. 697 companies were hit with violations this year.

New actions were included against emerging threats in the crypto and SPAC spaces, but there was still plenty of enforcement in more traditional areas like insider trading, inadequate disclosure and breaching of fiduciary duty.

What types of misconduct landed individuals and firms on the SEC’s radar this year?

A consulting firm partner who was advising a global bank on the acquisition of a FinTech loan processing firm was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on two counts of securities fraud for illegal trading using material nonpublic information (MNPI). In a parallel action, criminal charges were also filed in the state of New York that bring a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison.