All Regulatory Enforcement articles – Page 147
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Blog
SEC: Merrill Lynch to pay $415M for misusing customer cash
Merrill Lynch has agreed to pay $415 million to settle charges that it misused customer cash to generate profits for the firm and failed to safeguard customer securities from the claims of its creditors. Jaclyn Jaeger reports.
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'Hold' everything: SEC may be stuck at three commissioners for a while
Instead of trying to come up with new ways to repeatedly express public “disappointment” in the SEC, says enforcement blogger Bruce Carton, perhaps the U.S. Senate could simply do its own job and vote on the two nominees that President Obama nominated back in October 2015. Carton explores reasons behind ...
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Compliance fail: Chinese bank employees publicly spanked for poor performance
A disturbing video of a Chinese bank's effort to improve employee performance -- through public, violent spankings of employees -- was posted yesterday. The video, which will make even the most hardened U.S. compliance officer cringe, shows a line of employees from Changzhi Rural Commercial Bank being subjected to an ...
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Compliance front and center
The SEC and Justice Department have made it clear that it will no longer be adequate for companies merely to have a compliance program in place; it must actually be taken seriously from within and given the power and resources to do its job. Tom Fox explores.
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Shots fired
In the aftermath of the Orlando massacre comes the all-too-familiar debate about guns and gun control in the United States. In that, a familiar refrain arises: Why bother regulating something when the evil and disturbed clearly will not obey the laws anyway? Why, indeed. The answer that matters most might ...
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SEC prevails again in latest circuit court challenge to APs
Constitutional challenges to the SEC’s use of administrative proceedings to carry out enforcement actions continue to find no success in federal circuit court. Last week, the Eleventh Circuit joined the three other circuits that have considered and rejected such challenges. More from Bruce Carton.
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LockPath joins American National Standards Institute to provide ISO content
LockPath, a GRC solutions provider, announced that it is now a member of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the official U.S. representative to the International Organization for Standardization. LockPath will be working with ANSI to provide content for the dozens of ISO standards through its GRC solution, the Keylight ...
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Sen. Warren, Chair White and the circle of disappointment
At a hearing this week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren tried to hang her "disappointment" on SEC Chair Mary Jo White for the third time in 12 months. This time, to Sen. Warren's surprise, Chair White was ready to fight disappointment with disappointment.
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Court rules SEC need not reimburse deponents for 'bacchanalian adventure'
Bacchus is the Roman god of wine and intoxication (equated with the Greek Dionysus). "Bacchanalia," or orgies in honor of Dionysus, were introduced in Rome around 200 BCE but eventualy got so out of hand that they were forbidden by the Roman Senate in 186 BCE. Roughly 2,000 years later, ...
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Proofpoint releases Proofpoint Intelligent Supervision
Proofpoint, a next-generation cyber-security and compliance company, announced the release of Proofpoint Intelligent Supervision, designed to significantly accelerate FINRA, SEC, and IIROC compliance review and reduce audit time.
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SEC Enforcement Hits Morgan Stanley for Cybersecurity Failure
The SEC brought its latest case under Regulation S-P today, announcing a settled administrative proceeding against Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $1 million penalty to settle the agency's charges that it failed to protect customer data, some of which was hacked and offered for ...
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SEC: two FCPA cases result in non-prosecution agreements
The SEC has entered into non-prosecution agreements with Akamai Technologies and Nortek that will forfeit ill-gotten gains connected to bribes paid to Chinese officials by foreign subsidiaries. Simultaneously, the Justice Department closed its investigations into Akamai and Nortek. Jaclyn Jaeger reports.
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Senior SEC enforcement official Stephen Cohen to depart agency this month
Stephen Cohen, associate director for the SEC’s Enforcement Division, plans to leave the agency later this month after 12 years of service. A senior member of the Commission’s enforcement staff, Cohen joined the SEC in 2004 and has served as associate director since 2011. Bruce Carton has more.
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French tax authorities seek €356 million from Booking.com
French tax authorities are seeking €356 million (approximately US$404 million) from Booking.com, a unit of online hotel reservation company Priceline Group, to recover what they claim are unpaid income taxes and value-added taxes, the company disclosed in a quarterly report.
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Two former Deutsche Bank employees indicted on fraud charges
The Department of Justice announced today the indictment of two former Deutsche Bank traders—the bank’s supervisor of the pool trading desk in New York and a derivatives trader in London—for their alleged roles in a scheme to manipulate the USD London InterBank Offered Rate, a benchmark interest rate to which ...
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The ‘I did not apply my mind’ defense to insider trading
Enforcement blogger Bruce Carton looks at a recent insider trading case, in which South Africa’s securities regulator agreed to reduce the defendant’s penalty because he claimed he “did not apply his mind to the applicable legislation at the time of the trading” but was now deeply sorry for his actions.
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Article
Defining compliance program effectiveness
During a keynote panel at Compliance Week 2016, enforcement officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice spoke candidly about compliance program effectiveness, personal liability, and more. Jaclyn Jaeger reports.
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CW2016: Practical implications of the Yates Memo
At Compliance Week 2016 last week, Jaclyn Jaeger covered the conversation between current and former enforcement officials, as well as compliance officers, on how the “Yates Memo” is affecting them from a real-world standpoint.
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SEC: Cyber-security now biggest risk facing financial system
In an interview on May 17, SEC Chair Mary Jo White made an eye-opening comment about cyber-security. Cyber-security, she stated, is now the “biggest risk facing the financial system.” What does that mean for the Commission going forward? Bruce Carton reports.
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Some (minor) movement in SEC nominations of Fairfax and Peirce
It wasn't much, but given the complete lack of movement in the languishing nominations of Hester Peirce and Lisa Fairfax to be SEC commissioners, we'll take it. On Thursday, May 19, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee finally voted to advance the nominations of Peirce and Fairfax to the full Senate ...