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Record HSBC Case Left Few Avenues for Indictments, Say Prosecutors
By Colby Adams
printCriticism of the U.S. Justice Department's apparent decision to forego indictments against HSBC and the global bank's employees misses a larger point: federal prosecutors had little chance of securing a conviction. On Dec. 11, state and federal prosecutors and three agencies of the Treasury Department announced a record $1.9 billion settlement with the London-headquartered institution for knowingly allowing drug traffickers to launder at least $881 million and helping blacklisted entities circumvent sanctions. The deferred prosecution agreement, or DPA, marks the largest of its kind to date, and also adds HSBC Holdings Plc to a growing list of banks that have...
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The U.S. Justice Department's use of deferred prosecution agreements has been effective though often misunderstood, according to Jonathan E. Lopez, a former deputy chief of the department's Money Laundering and Bank Integrity Unit who oversaw investigations into HSBC and MoneyGram.
HSBC should have done more to vet the anti-money laundering compliance controls of banks it acquired in Mexico and Switzerland, the institution's former chief executive officer told British lawmakers Tuesday.
The axe may be falling on up to 50,000 positions at HSBC Holdings Plc but at least one department seems sheltered from the cost-cutting measures: the bank's compliance team.
British lawmakers Monday sharply criticized HSBC’s leadership for failing to prevent widespread tax evasion by clients and take responsibility for the institution’s compliance lapses.
Facing parliamentary criticism, HSBC's top executives conceded Wednesday to "unacceptable" failures of its Swiss private banking unit that led to likely account abuses and subsequent reputational damage.
London-based HSBC Holdings Plc could find itself paying more to rectify past compliance problems following disclosures this week about the bank's services for clients with criminal ties, according to analysts.
A number of large U.S. and international banks are dropping customer accounts and services tied to high-risk geographical regions and lines of business in response to regulatory pressure, including enforcement actions.
HSBC Bank USA will seek a new chief compliance officer after the departure of the executive who filled the role for over two years.
A hiring spate by some of the largest banks facing a variety of regulatory pressures has resulted in more than just a glut of compliance officers. It's been a training headache too.
Facing mounting regulatory pressure in the past year, several multinational banks are weighing whether to scale back their cash letter processing and other services for some of their foreign counterparts, say compliance professionals.
Scrutiny of HSBC Securities Centers on Suspicious Activity Reporting, Transaction Monitoring: Source
Examiners from the nation's top regulators of broker-dealers are investigating whether HSBC Securities USA sufficiently scrutinized and reported suspicious transactions, according to an individual with knowledge of the matter.
Liechtenstein's oldest bank will pay nearly $24 million to the United States for aiding American tax evaders for at least a decade, the Southern District of New York disclosed Tuesday.
Without the threat of larger monetary settlements or prosecutions, financial institutions have little economic incentive to seriously enforce their anti-money laundering compliance controls, according to Peter Reuter, a professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland.
The United Kingdom Thursday detailed a plan to settle alleged corporate violations of criminal laws without pursuing prosecutions -a strategy used by U.S. officials to exact billions from financial institutions.
A growing number of compliance professionals expect that someone at a bank, even a compliance officer, will be prosecuted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act in the not-too-distant future.
Among the toasts at Adam Kaufmann's "retirement" party last week was one by a speaker who credited him with turning a bounced check into more than a billion dollars in penalties that have been shared by the city and state of New York over the past four years.
Though none can predict the future, one thing in the AML world seems certain: the jobs of compliance officers won't get any easier in 2013.
It's a question few banks ever want to hear from the U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions arm: would you waive your statute of limitations protections and allow us to review more data?
I'm not going to give you that "best of times, worst of times" crap in summing up 2012. When it comes to the year in compliance, there was just the "worst of times" and not much, if any, "best."
For many anti-money laundering and sanctions professionals, 2012 will be remembered as a year of record fines. Banks paid billions to settle AML and sanctions compliance violations, with one penalty alone reaching almost $2 billion.