Month: July 2022

US Bank Compliance Failures

Another Fake Bank Accounts Scandal Emerges

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on July 28 ordered U.S. Bank to pay a $37.5 million penalty to compensate harmed consumers after the bank illegally accessed customers’ credit reports and associates opened checking and savings accounts, credit cards, and lines of credit without their customers’ permission. The violations Read More

SEC seal

SEC Charges JPMorgan, UBS, TradeStation Over Identity Theft Protection Deficiencies

The Securities and Exchange Commission settled charges against J.P. Morgan Securities, UBS Financial Services, and TradeStation Securities for deficiencies in their programs to prevent customer identity theft, in violation of the SEC’s Identity Theft Red Flags Rule (Regulation S-ID). The SEC’s orders find that each firm violated Rule 201 of Read More

NLRB

NLRB Partners With DoJ, FTC To Better Protect Worker’ Rights

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this month signed separate memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, which create formal partnerships between the agencies in the name of protecting worker rights. On July 26, the NLRB signed an MOU with the Justice Department’s Read More

Uber Enters NPA with Department of Justice Over 2016 Data Breach

Uber Technologies recently entered a non-prosecution agreement (NPA) with the Department of Justice resulting from the ridesharing company’s coverup of a massive 2016 data breach. Under the terms of the NPA, Uber accepted responsibility for its conduct in the wake of the 2016 data breach, specifically for concealing the data Read More

Poultry farms settle with DoJ

Three Poultry Producers Reach Consent Decrees with DoJ on Wage-Fixing Scheme

Three major poultry producers—Cargill, Sanderson Farms, and Wayne Farms—entered into proposed consent decrees with the Department of Justice to resolve allegations that they engaged in anticompetitive practices by secretly exchanging wage and benefits information about their plant workers in violation of the Sherman Act. They also agree to pay a Read More

Serious Fraud Office

Independent Review Rebukes SFO for Failures in Unaoil Case

An independent review into the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office’s handling of the Unaoil corruption case was made public this week, providing damning details about the inner workings of the enforcement agency and its embarrassing bungling of the matter that resulted in three acquittals. The review was commissioned by the Read More

Equitable Financial Fine

SEC Scolds Equitable Financial for Providing Misleading Account Statements

Equitable Financial Life Insurance Co. agreed to pay a $50 million civil penalty, which will be distributed to harmed investors, to settle charges that it provided misleading account statements to about 1.4 million investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which pursued the fraud case, said that the statements included materially Read More

Grant Thornton

FRC Sanctions Grant Thornton UK for ‘Serious Failings’ in Sports Direct Audits

The U.K. Financial Reporting Council announced July 18 it has imposed financial and non-financial sanctions, as well as a “severe reprimand,” against Grant Thornton UK and a former audit partner of the firm for failures during 2016 and 2018 audits of the financial statements of British retail company Sports Direct Read More

Bank of America penalties

BofA Faces $425 Million in Penalties from Two Enforcement Actions

Bank of America has been ordered to pay $225 million in civil penalties and redress to harmed consumers for engaging in abusive practices when it denied consumers access to unemployment benefits on prepaid debit cards at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a separate case, Bank of America is Read More

CFTC Logo image

CFTC Charges BNP Paribas, JP Morgan With Swap Reporting Failures

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued two separate orders on July 5, simultaneously filing and settling charges against two separate swap dealers for failing to comply with their reporting obligations in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations. In the first action, the CFTC ordered BNP Paribas, Read More