Archive

Government Ups the Ante for Financial Fraud With Criminal Charges Against UBS for LIBOR Misdeeds

By Gordon Schnell It was just two weeks ago that the government slapped HSBC with a record $1.9 billion fine to settle charges of money laundering and dealing with terrorist states. As steep as the payment was, however, there seemed to be an overriding consensus that the government let the banking giant off easy by foregoing any criminal charges. To many, it was just the latest iteration of the...

Too Big to Prosecute? -- HSBC Pays Record Fine for "Aiding and Abetting Drug Lords and Terrorists" But Dodges Criminal Sanctions

By Gordon Schnell The London-based mega-bank HSBC agreed last week to pay $1.9 billion to settle government charges that it violated the Bank Secrecy Act for facilitating money laundering by some of the world's nastiest drug cartels.  The charges also included alleged violations of the Trading with the Enemy Act for the bank's improper dealings with a number of countries subject to international sanctions.  Click...

SEC Whistleblower Program Continues to Gain Steam With No Signs of Slowing Down

By Jason Enzler The SEC just released its second annual report on its whistleblower program (available here).  While there are no major surprises, there are some interesting facts to take away and even some trends that can be deduced.  Consistent with our report in a previous post, the number of attorneys staffing the SEC’s Whistleblower Office has doubled.  See Business Is Booming At The SEC Whistleblower...

Everything You Want to Know About the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and More

By Jason Enzler In a move that should help both businesses and those seeking to combat fraud, the SEC and DOJ jointly released a 120-page guide on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) on Wednesday.  The guide does not represent any changes to the law or new trends in its enforcement, but it does gather in one place an easy-to-read discussion of the law and its prohibitions, answers to hypothetical scenarios,...

To Report or Not Report; Conflicting Guidance From the Courts -- What is a Whistleblower to Do?

By Gordon Schnell and Marlene Koury (published in the American Banker) Under the recently implemented whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, whistleblowers who report violations of the securities laws are supposed to be protected from being fired.  These protections -- which can include reinstatement, double back pay and special damages -- are designed to serve as an incentive for whistleblowers to come...

SEC Continues its Crusade Against Foreign Bribery

By Gordon Schnell The reinvigorated efforts of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to fight foreign bribery continue to pay off.  This week, the SEC announced that the drug giant, Pfizer, has agreed to pay $60 million to settle criminal and civil charges that its subsidiaries bribed foreign officials in Europe and Asia in order to win business there.  Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), it...

Wells Fargo Settles for Discriminatory Lending Practices

By Marlene Koury Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $175 million to settle government charges that it discriminated against qualified African-American and Latino borrowers in its mortgage lending from 2004 through 2009.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the settlement on July 12, 2012, making it the second largest fair lending settlement in the DOJ’s history after its December 2011 settlement with Bank of...