InfoBytes Blog
State-Chartered Bank Settles with New York DFS for Alleged Violations of Banking Law
On October 28, the New York DFS resolved an enforcement action with a New York State-charted bank for alleged violations of state banking law. The DFS alleged that the bank hired a former New York Federal Reserve Bank examiner and permitted him to work on matters for an entity that the employee had examined while at the New York Fed, in violation of a notice of post-employment restrictions from the New York Fed. The DFS also alleged that the employee obtained confidential regulatory or supervisory information from a now former New York Fed employee and distributed the information to a Managing Director at the bank for the purpose of advising the entity. In addition to the bank’s alleged failure to screen the employee from working on matters related to the entity he had examined, the DFS’s order alleges that the bank failed to “provide training to personnel regarding what constituted confidential supervisory information and how it should be safeguarded.” Under the settlement terms, the bank will (i) pay a civil money penalty of $50 million to the DFS; (ii) reform its policies and procedures to ensure the proper handling of confidential supervisory information and the monitoring of assignments of former government employees; and (iii) not re-hire the bank employee and Managing Director, who had been terminated as result of the matter.