HSBC to pay $1.9 billion U.S. fine in money-laundering case
(Reuters) - HSBC Holdings Plc agreed to pay a record $1.92 billion in fines to U.S. authorities for allowing itself to be used to launder a river of drug money flowing out of Mexico and other banking lapses.
Mexico's Sinaloa cartel and Colombia's Norte del Valle cartel between them laundered $881 million through HSBC and a Mexican unit, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.
In a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, the bank acknowledged it failed to maintain an effective program against money laundering and failed to conduct basic due diligence on some of its account holders.
Under the agreement, which was reported by Reuters last week, the bank agreed to take steps to fix the problems, forfeit $1.256 billion, and retain a compliance monitor. The bank also agreed to pay $665 million in civil penalties to regulators including to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department.
"We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organization from the one that made those mistakes," HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said
Swiss Bank fined $1.5 Billion For Rate Rigging
Swiss banking giant UBS has agreed to pay $1.5bn (£940m) to US, UK and Swiss regulators for attempting to manipulate the Libor inter-bank lending rate.
It becomes the second major bank to be fined over Libor after Barclays was ordered to pay $450m to UK and US authorities in the summer.
Regulators worldwide are investigating a number of banks for rigging Libor.
Libor tracks the average rate at which the major international banks based in London lend money to each other.
It is the second-largest set of fines imposed on a bank to date, after the $1.9bn that HSBC agreed to pay US authorities earlier this month to settle allegations of money-laundering.
The bank has also agreed to admit to committing wire fraud through its Tokyo office in the case of manipulating Libor rates for loans denominated in Japanese yen, among others.
It said it would seek a non-prosecution agreement with the DoJ covering the rest of the bank’s misbehaviour.
UBS said it has agreed to pay fines to regulators in three different countries: $1.2bn (£740m) in combined fines to the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, £160m to the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA), 59m Swiss Francs (£40m) to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority.
Morgan Stanley Fined $5 Million by Massachusetts on Facebook IPO
A senior Morgan Stanley banker wrote a script that Facebook's then-treasurer used to update research analysts on the company's revenue outlook before the IPO, according to a settlement document with Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin. He faulted Morgan Stanley for dishonesty, ethics violations and failing to supervise employees — the first regulatory claims to stem from the bank's handling of the deal.
A plunge in Facebook's stock after it began trading in May has fueled government probes and more than 40 lawsuits, with some investors claiming the social-network company failed to disclose revised forecasts before the IPO. The small size of Morgan Stanley's fine relative to investors' losses shows other regulators may struggle to pin much blame on the bank, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
"They paid a little bit of lunch money as a fine, they're not getting disqualified, and they agreed once again to abide by a consent order they agreed to nine years ago," Gordon said yesterday. "Coming from Massachusetts, where they could've gotten hit a lot harder, if anything, this is not encouraging to attorneys general."
Mitsubishi Bank fined US$8.6m for flouting US sanctions
Posted: 13 December 2012 1107 hrs
Posted: 13 December 2012 1107 hrs
NEW YORK: Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan's biggest bank, must pay US authorities a fine totaling some US$8.6 million for flouting US sanctions on Iran, Sudan, Myanmar and Cuba, the US Treasury Department said Wednesday.
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubish-UFJ (BTMU) circumvented the sanctions between April 2006 and March 2007, Treasury said in a statement.
"BTMU's Tokyo operations engaged in practices designed to conceal the involvement of countries or persons subject to U.S. sanctions in transactions that BTMU processed through financial institutions in the United States," the US government authority said in its statement.
Washington said the bank's "egregious" conduct "displayed reckless disregard for US sanctions."
"BTMU employees systematically deleted or omitted from payment messages any information referencing US sanctions targets that would cause the funds to be blocked or rejected, prior to sending the transactions through the United States," the Treasury Department statement said.
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubish-UFJ (BTMU) circumvented the sanctions between April 2006 and March 2007, Treasury said in a statement.
"BTMU's Tokyo operations engaged in practices designed to conceal the involvement of countries or persons subject to U.S. sanctions in transactions that BTMU processed through financial institutions in the United States," the US government authority said in its statement.
Washington said the bank's "egregious" conduct "displayed reckless disregard for US sanctions."
"BTMU employees systematically deleted or omitted from payment messages any information referencing US sanctions targets that would cause the funds to be blocked or rejected, prior to sending the transactions through the United States," the Treasury Department statement said.
Bank fined millions for violating US sanctions
Updated
British bank Standard Chartered has been ordered to pay the United States almost $US330 million to settle charges it violated US sanctions against Iran, Burma, Libya and Sudan.
Standard Chartered has been fined $US100 million by the US federal reserve and the department of justice has seized assets worth more than $US220 million.
US authorities say the bank stripped messages on financial transfers that would have shown the beneficiaries were businesses and entities covered by American sanctions.
It is the second time Standard Chartered has been fined.
In August, Standard Chartered made a separate payment of $US340 million to New York's state banking regulator over violating Iranian sanctions.
Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky said then that Standard Chartered was a "rogue institution" that had shown "obvious contempt" for banking regulations, leaving the US vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers and corrupt regimes.
| Barclays bank fined $453m for market fixing |
UK bank's share price plunges after huge fine for distorting key interest rates to rig international markets.
Barclays share price has plunged by 17 per cent after the UK bank was hit by record fines for distorting key interest rates.
The rates concerned play a major role in international financial markets and affect how businesses and consumers borrow money.
Barclays agreed to pay $453m for using underhand tactics, including price-fixing, to rig the markets.
Other British banks also slumped on reports that the scandal was set to engulf HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Laurence Lee reports from London.
Bank fined $2.4m over risk failures, forced to refund 11,500 customersBy | 30/11/2012 12:00:00 AM | 0 comments
Irish subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Ulster Bank, has been fined $2.44m (€1.96m) by the Central Bank of Ireland for contravening liquidity risk requirements.
According to a Central Bank statement, it was found that between 26 January 2011 to 13 September 2011 the bank failed to comply with requirements by:
U.S. fines eight banks for alleged foreclosure abuse
WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve said Monday that it plans to fine eight additionalU.S. bank holding companies for improperly foreclosing on homeowners.
UBS agrees to pay $1.5 b for manipulating Libor
URICH/LONDON, DEC 19:
Swiss banking giant UBS said today it had agreed to pay about $1.5 billion to British, US and Swiss regulators to settle allegations it manipulated Libor interest rates.
The bank said the settlement, equivalent to 1.2 billion euros, would likely push it into a net loss of between $2.2-2.7 billion, in the fourth quarter.
The Libor rate is a reference point for vast ranges of financial contracts around the world, and revelations that it had been rigged have damaged the reputation of the City of London financial centre.
“UBS agrees to pay approximately CHF 1.4 billion in fines and disgorgement to US, UK and Swiss authorities to resolve LIBOR-related investigations,” the statement said.
The bank, the biggest in Switzerland, will pay three times the amount of the settlement reached in June with Britain’s Barclays, another one of the more than dozen banks investigated for trying to rig global interest rates.
As part of one of the biggest fines ever slapped on a financial institution, the Swiss bank said it had agreed to pay $260 million in fines to the UK Financial Services Authority.
It will pay $64 million as disgorgement, or compensatory penalty, of estimated profits to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
It also said it had agreed to payment schedules for a total of $1.2 billion to the US Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
FSA fines Habib Bank AG Zurich £525,000 and money laundering reporting officer £17,500 for anti-money laundering control failings
15 May 2012
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Habib Bank AG Zurich (Habib) £525,000 and its former Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) Syed Itrat Hussain £17,500 for failure to take reasonable care to establish and maintain adequate anti-money laundering (AML) systems and controls.
The failings at Habib lasted almost three years and exposed the firm to an unacceptable risk of laundering money.
Habib is a privately owned Swiss bank with twelve branches in the UK and approximately 15,500 customers. Approximately 45% of its customers were based outside the UK and about half of its deposits came from jurisdictions which, according to independent international organisations, had less stringent AML requirements or were perceived to have higher levels of corruption than the UK.
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