Mere days away from celebrating its first birthday, last week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau came of age. For months observers have wondered who would be the target of the CFPB’s first enforcement action. On July 18, the suspense ended—with a consent decree that requires Capital One Bank to refund $140 million to nearly 2 […]
Joe Mont
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CFTC Clears Up Swap Definitions, but Questions Linger
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved new rules this month that will make it one of the most influential and powerful regulatory agencies around, stretching its oversight further into the $650 trillion derivatives marketplace. It did so by settling a matter that sounds deceptively simple— defining the transactions it oversees. The CFTC, by a 4-to-1 […]
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Bipartisan Bill Would Boost SEC Fines, Strike at Repeat Offfenders
U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) will introduce legislation intended to embolden the Securities and Exchange Commission by raising limits on securities fines, linking penalties to scope of harm, and setting harsher punishments for repeat offenders Under existing law, the SEC can only penalize individual violators a maximum of $150,000 per offense […]
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CFPB’s First Public Enforcement Action Hits Capital One for $165 million
On Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) leveled its first public enforcement action, an order requiring Capital One Bank to refund approximately $140 million to nearly two million customers and pay a $25 million penalty. The action, announced on July 18, was made in coordination with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency […]
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HSBC’s Compliance Head Resigns During Senate Hearing
Amid charges that poor controls and maneuvering around banking regulations facilitated money laundering by Mexican Drug cartels and potentially aided terrorist groups, the chief compliance officer at HSBC announced that he would resign from that post during a Senate hearing on Tuesday. (Watch Video of the hearing.) David Bagley, who is based out of HSBC […]
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Post-Peregrine, Senators Blast CFTC and NFA Oversight
A push for electronic banking documents, with real time access for regulators, and a comprehensive review of the relationship between his agency and the National Futures Association, are among the potential remedies being offered by Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler in response to high-profile cases of fraud in the futures market. Gensler offered […]
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Sarbanes-Oxley Turns 10
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted on July 30, 2002, was the regulatory response to a corporate crime wave, as executives from Enron, WorldCom, and many others were making daily perp walks on the nightly news. On the occasion of its ten-year anniversary, many are asking if the law, which ushered in a new era of compliance, […]
Posted inData Privacy
Shop Talk: How Compliance and IT Can Get It Together
Long gone are those times of yore, when “IT security” was universally understood to mean “hackers on the outside trying to break in and steal your data.” Spare a moment for those simpler days, now gone for good. Today IT security can mean almost anything: threats coming from both inside and outside the company, done […]
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CFPB Begins Supervision of Credit Bureaus
Marking the first time they have been comprehensively supervised at the federal level, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) adopted a rule on Monday that begins its oversight of credit bureaus and credit reporting companies. The Dodd-Frank Act authorizes the CFPB to supervise nonbanks in the specific markets of residential mortgage, payday, and private education […]
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Missing Funds at MF Global and PFGBest Prompt CFTC Rules
On Friday, Russell Wasendorf Sr., founder of failed brokerage firm PFGBest, was arrested on fraud charges related to the bankruptcy of its Peregrine Financial Group unit and a missing $215 million in customer funds. Coincidentally, hours later, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved rules intended to protect investor funds from misappropriation that were prompted by […]
