New York banking regulators have handed PwC a two-year ban on new consulting arrangements subject to their approval and a $25 million fine after concluding the firm put client interests ahead of an objective regulatory review.
The New York Department of Financial Services says PwC partners bowed to pressure from the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi to remove from a report to regulators references to the bank’s activity in falsifying wire transfer information to countries such as Iran, Sudan and others entities under sanction. In 2008, PwC was performing a “historical transaction review” report to submit to regulators on wire transfers that the bank performed on behalf of sanctioned countries and entities when members of the PwC team learned in the 11th month of a 12-month engagement that bank employees were under instruction to strip wire messages of information that would trigger sanctions compliance alerts, New York officials said.
