All Regulatory Enforcement articles – Page 153
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Blog
New European Regulations Mean More Competition Between ‘Big Four’
New European regulations requiring companies to change auditors every 20 years have led to intense competition between the Big Four audit firms. Barclays, for instance has cut a 120-year relationship with PwC, and KPMG has been picked up as auditor for the British bank. The audit firm rotation continued at ...
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Blog
Steven Cohen Preparing Latest Constitutional Challenge to SEC's APs
The next constitutional challenge to the SEC's administrative proceedings process may be the most high-profile one to date. Lawyers for Steven A. Cohen confirmed that the SAC Capital founder intends to mount such a challenge if ongoing settlement talks are not successful.
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Blog
Revised Ofcom Guidelines Could Mean Higher Penalties
Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the U.K. communications industry, this month published updated penalty guidelines, which were last revised in 2011. The new guidelines give Ofcom greater flexibility to impose higher penalties for non-compliance. “Companies should therefore take immediate steps to assess and reduce such potential exposure ...
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Blog
SEC Settles Insider Case Based on Credit Card Sales Data
The SEC announced a partial settlement today in an unusual insider trading case that it brought earlier this year against Bonan Huang and Nan Huang -- two former employees in the fraud department at Capital One Financial Corp. The SEC alleges that the men made over $2.8 million in illegal ...
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Blog
SEC's Aguilar Looks Back at Seven Years of Progress
SEC Commissioner Luis A. Aguilar will depart the SEC at the end of this month after serving as a commissioner for over seven years. With his last day at the SEC quickly approaching, Commissioner Aguilar posted an interesting statement on the SEC's website this week in which he shared some ...
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Blog
Treasury Amends Russia and Ukraine Sanctions List
The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control yesterday designated and identified 34 new individuals and entities under four executive orders related to Russia and Ukraine. The updated sanctions list also provides several new lessons for compliance officers.
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Blog
FinCEN Fines First Card Club for Bank Secrecy Act Violations
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network this week announced its first settlement with, and assessment against, a “card club” gaming establishment for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The settlement and FinCEN’s assessment requires Oaks Card Club to pay a fine of $650,000 for willful violations of the BSA.
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Article
SEC Enforcement Trends to Watch in 2016
Image: A legal analysis of SEC enforcement brought in 2015, along with recent speeches given by SEC enforcement staff, provide a pretty clear roadmap of where the enforcement staff will continue to focus its top priorities in 2016. “Making sure you are addressing those issues in your compliance programs is ...
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Blog
EBA Publishes Final Remuneration Guidelines
The European Banking Authority has published its final guidelines on remuneration policies, but in doing so has postponed the pay rules in the Capital Requirements Directive until 2017 to allow firms more time to prepare for the policies. “In particular, the guidelines set out the governance process for implementing sound ...
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Blog
J.P. Morgan to Pay SEC and CFTC $307 million for Disclosure Violations
Two JP Morgan wealth management subsidiaries today agreed to pay a total of $307 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in joint enforcement actions for failure to disclose conflicts of interest to clients. Both the CFTC and SEC charged J.P. Morgan Securities (JPMS) ...
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Blog
Navigating Dodd-Frank’s Whistleblower Provisions and the FCPA
The SEC recently reported that FY 2015 brought a new high for whistleblower tips regarding FCPA violations, and reiterated that the Dodd-Frank whistleblower incentive provisions have been a “game-changer” for FCPA enforcement. Last week, I hosted an interesting webcast on the subject of "Navigating the Minefield of Dodd-Frank’s Whistleblower Provisions ...
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Blog
"America's Most Hated Man" Martin Shkreli Arrested for Securities Fraud
In recent weeks, Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, has become the the “most hated man in America” for unapologetically raising the price of an important HIV-fighting drug from $13.50 to $750. It was with unbridled glee, then, that the media reported that Shkreli was arrested this morning on ...
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Blog
European Watchdog Urges Vatican to Toughen Up on Financial Crimes
The Council of Europe’s Moneyval Committee is calling on the Vatican to step up its anti-money laundering enforcement actions. Although the Vatican has finally revamped its regulations to address terrorist financing and money laundering, there’s still a lot of work needed to detect and prevent suspicious transactions, the regulator said.
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Article
OSHA Enforcement Trends to Watch in 2016
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is raising the stakes for companies that fail to provide safe workplaces. One development affecting CCOs in the coming year would dramatically increase penalties and emphasize who qualifies as an “employer.” “Every employer should be terrified of OSHA right now,” says Valerie Butera of ...
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Blog
U.S. and China to Expand AML Collaboration
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the China Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Center last week signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a framework to facilitate expanded U.S.- China cooperation between both nations’ financial intelligence units. According to the Treasury Department, the arrangement provides a mechanism ...
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Blog
The Philippines Not Playing Around With Pyramid Schemers
The Philippines doesn't make a lot of news in the securities enforcement world. When the Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission does prosecute and convict someone for a major securities fraud, however, it doesn't play around!
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Blog
SEC Trial Scorecard Update: Agency Prevails in First FY 2016 Trial
Last week, the SEC prevailed at trial in SEC v. National Note of Utah and Wayne L. Palmer -- a bench trial alleging a Ponzi scheme. Following this victory, the SEC is now 1-0 in its FY 2016 federal court trials.
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Blog
Wyndham Settles FTC Charges in Cyber-Security Case
Wyndham Worldwide this week agreed to settle charges with the Federal Trade Commission that the company’s security practices unfairly exposed the payment card information of hundreds of thousands of consumers to hackers in three separate data breaches. The FTC first filed the complaint against Wyndham in 2012 over allegations that ...
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Blog
Survey: Banker Bonuses Plummet in 2016
Image: Bankers should see a sharp fall in their bonuses this year in light of new regulations and increased shareholder pressure around soaring banker bonuses. According to a U.K.-based salary benchmarking website, investment banker bonuses are expected to take a 4 percent dip this year. Last month, at an academic ...
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Article
U.S. and U.K. Treasury Revisit AML Risks
Image: For the first time in 10 years in the United States—and for the first time ever in the United Kingdom—financial institutions have some much-needed insight into how these two countries intend to prioritize money laundering and terrorist financing risks, enabling compliance officers to better allocate their limited resources. “These ...