We have selected some of the GRC News highlights from the past month and summarized them into this blog post. Subscribe to keep up to date on more GRC news updates.
Irish Bank AIB fined for AML (Apr 27th)
AIB, Ireland's largest bank was fined €2.275 million by the Central Bank for breaching anti-money laundering laws. At one point a back log of over 4,200 AML alerts stood outstanding for 30 plus days. The Central bank accused AIB of not providing adequate resources to address these alerts. (source)
SEC awards close to $4 million to whistleblower (Apr 25th)
An anonymous whistleblower was awarded nearly $4 million by the Security and Exchange Commission. Whistleblower awards from the SEC can range from 10-30% of the money collected from sanctions. (source)
Draft proposes significant changes to Dodd-Frank Act (Apr 24th)
A new draft by the House Financial Services Committee proposes changes to Dodd Frank including the movement of some jurisdictional power from the SEC to the Federal District Court. Other proposed changes include increasing the maximum corporate fine to $10 million per violation.
Odebrecht fined a record $2.6 billion (Apr 21)
Earlier this month Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht was ordered to pay a record $2.6 billion in fines for violations of anti-corruption laws in Brazil, Switzerland and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The fine is to be split $2.39b to the Brazilian government, $93 million to the US Department of Treasury and $116m to the Swiss government. Read our full blog post here
Piowar calls for SEC to re-evaluate the fiduciary rule (Apr 21st)
The Securities and Exchange Commission's acting chairman Michael Piwowar has in the past been an outspoken critic of the DOL's fiduciary rule. He is interested in exploring the use of names like "investment adviser" amongst other reforms. (source)
UK FCA probes reach 10 Year high (Apr 20th)
The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) carried out a record 70 insider trading investigations in 2016, more than double the amount carried out any other year in the last decade. Not all investigations lead to convictions and many are still on-going, but the sentiment is there. The FCA are cracking down on insider trading. (source)
The OCC aims to 'refine supervisory program' (Apr 19th)
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has admitted oversight and failure to act sooner on the Wells Fargo accounts scandal of last year. The banks federal regulator allegedly got hundreds of whistle blower complaints against the company for its sales tactics. These revelations came to light as a result of a 15 page report issued by the OCC, which aims to 'improve and refine the agencies supervisory program, sharpen our early warning process and to enhance our supervisory capabilities.' (source)
FINRA has a record Q1 2017 for fines sanctioned (Apr 6th)
Q1 2017 saw a record $81.6 million in fines and $13.4 million in restitution. The largest single corporate fine was $16.5 million to Credit Suisse Securities for AML. You can read more here: FINRA Fines Q1 2017 - 6 Findings