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Federal Agencies Finalize Volcker Rule
On December 10, the Federal Reserve Board, the OCC, the FDIC, the SEC, and the CFTC issued a final rule to implement Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act, the so-called Volcker Rule. Section 619 was a central component of the Dodd-Frank Act reforms, and the final rule and its preamble are lengthy and complex. The Federal Reserve Board released a fact sheet, as well as a guide for community banks. Generally, the final rule implements statutory requirements prohibiting certain banking entities from (i) engaging in short-term proprietary trading of any security, derivative, and certain other financial instruments for a banking entity's own account, (ii) owning, sponsoring, or having certain relationships with a hedge fund or private equity fund, (iii) engaging in an exempted transaction or activity if it would involve or result in a material conflict of interest between the banking entity and its clients, customers, or counterparties, or that would result in a material exposure to high-risk assets or trading strategies, and (iv) engaging in an exempted transaction or activity if it would pose a threat to the safety and soundness of the banking entity or to the financial stability of the U.S. Exempted activities include: (i) market making; (ii) underwriting; (iii) risk-mitigating hedging; (iv) trading in certain government obligations; (v) certain trading activities of foreign banking entities; and (vi) certain other permitted activities. The compliance requirements under the final rules vary based on the size of the institution and the scope of activities conducted. Those with significant trading operations will be required to establish a detailed compliance program, which will be subject to independent testing and analysis, and their CEOs will be required to attest that the program is reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the final rule. The regulators state that the final rules reduce the burden on smaller, less-complex, institutions by limiting their compliance and reporting requirements. The rule takes effect on April 1 2014; however, the Federal Reserve Board announced that banking organizations covered by section 619 will not be required to fully conform their activities and investments until July 21, 2015.
Multinational Oil Services Company Resolves FCPA, Sanctions, And Export Control Matter
On November 26, the DOJ announced that Weatherford International—a multinational oil services company—and certain of its subsidiaries agreed to pay approximately $250 million in fines and penalties to resolve FCPA, sanctions, and export control violations. The DOJ alleged in a criminal information that the company knowingly failed to establish an effective system of internal accounting controls designed to detect and prevent corruption, including FCPA violations. The alleged compliance failures allowed employees of certain of the company’s subsidiaries in Africa and the Middle East to engage in prohibited conduct over the course of many years, including both bribery of foreign officials and fraudulent misuse of the United Nations’ Oil for Food Program. The company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, pursuant to which it must pay an approximately $87 million penalty, retain an independent corporate compliance monitor for at least 18 months, and continue to implement an enhanced FCPA compliance program and internal controls. The subsidiaries pleaded guilty to related specific acts of corruption, including those alleged in a separate criminal information. The DOJ alleged, among other things, that employees of certain subsidiaries engaged in at least three schemes to pay bribes to foreign officials in exchange for government contracts. In addition the parent company agreed to pay over $65 million and submit to compliance and monitoring requirements to resolve parallel SEC civil allegations that the company violated the anti-bribery, books and records, and internal accounting controls provisions of the FCPA.
Separately, the parent company entered into an agreement with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ, as well as an agreement with the Department of Commerce, to resolve alleged sanctions and export controls violations. Collectively, those agreements require the company to, among other things, pay $100 million in penalties and fines—inclusive of a $91 million settlement with OFAC—and undergo external audits of its efforts to comply with the relevant U.S. sanctions law for calendar years 2012, 2013, and 2014. Those payments resolve allegations, described in part in another DOJ criminal information, that the company and certain subsidiaries exported or re-exported oil and gas drilling equipment to, and conducted business operations in, sanctioned countries—including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria—without the required U.S. Government authorization.
SEC Announces Its First Ever Deferred Prosecution Agreement With An Individual
On November 12, the SEC announced a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with a former hedge fund administrator, the agency’s first ever DPA with an individual. The DPA follows a November 2012 SEC enforcement action against a hedge fund and its manager, who allegedly misappropriated more than $1.5 million from the hedge fund and overstated its performance to investors. The SEC action derived from and was aided by information provided by the hedge fund administrator. In return for the assistance provided, the SEC agreed to enter the DPA instead of pursuing allegations that the settling administrator aided and abetted the fund’s securities law violations. The DPA requires the administrator to disgorge $50,000, and prohibits the administrator from, (i) serving as a fund administrator or otherwise providing any services to any hedge fund for a period of five years, and (ii) associating with any broker, dealer, investment adviser, or registered investment company. The SEC states the agreement demonstrates its commitment to rewarding proactive cooperation. According to the SEC, the agreement strikes a balance between holding the administrator accountable for his part in the alleged misconduct, while giving him credit for reporting the fraud and providing full cooperation without any assurances of leniency.
SEC Action Targets Investment Adviser Custody Rule Violations
On October 28, the SEC announced enforcement actions against three investment advisory firms and certain executives for allegedly violating the “custody rule,” which was updated in 2010 and applies to SEC-registered investment advisory firms that have legal ownership or access to client assets or an arrangement permitting them to withdraw client assets. According to the SEC, in addition to other alleged securities violations, the firms allegedly failed to maintain client assets with a qualified custodian or engage an independent public accountant to conduct required surprise exams. To avoid further administrative proceedings, the firms and executives agreed to settle but did not admit the allegations. The firms and individuals collectively agreed to pay $535,000 in penalties, and one firm was required to disgorge nearly $350,000, inclusive of prejudgment interest. The firms also must submit to independent compliance reviews and implement certain specified compliance enhancements.
Financial Regulators Propose Framework for Assessing Diversity At Financial Firms
On October 23, the CFPB, the OCC, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve Board, the NCUA, and the SEC proposed joint standards for assessing the diversity policies and practices of regulated institutions. Section 342 of the Dodd-Frank Act required the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) at each agency to develop the standards. The Act specifically prohibits the standards from imposing requirements on or otherwise affecting the lending policies and practices of any regulated entity, or requiring any specific action based on the findings of an assessment, and the agencies state that the assessments will not occur within the standard examination or supervision process. The standards, which the agencies believe are designed to promote “transparency and awareness,” cover four general areas: (i) organizational commitment to diversity and inclusion, (ii) workforce profile and employment practices, (iii) procurement and business practices to promote supplier diversity, and (iv) practices to promote transparency of organizational diversity and inclusion. The agencies state that the standards account for variables including asset size, number of employees, governance structure, income, number of members or customers, contract volume, location, and community characteristics, and the agencies recognize the standards may need to change and improve over time. The proposed standards are subject to a public comment period, which will run for 60 days once they are published in the Federal Register.
DOJ, SEC Announce FCPA Actions Against U.S. ATM Maker
On October 22, the DOJ and the SEC announced parallel criminal and civil actions against a U.S. company for allegedly violating the FCPA by paying bribes and falsifying documents in connection with selling ATMs to bank customers in China, Indonesia, and Russia. The federal authorities allege that from 2005 to 2010 the company provided approximately $1.8 million of value to employees of its bank customers in China and Indonesia, including state-owned banks, in the form of payments, gifts, and non-business travel. The company allegedly attempted to disguise the benefits by routing the payments through third parties designated by the banks and by recording leisure trips for bank employees as “training” expenses. The government also alleges that from 2005 to 2009, the company entered into false contracts with a distributor in Russia for services that the distributor was not performing. Instead, the distributor allegedly used the approximately $1.2 million in payments to bribe employees of privately-owned Russian banks to secure ATM-related contracts for the company. The company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ, agreeing to pay a $25.2 million penalty, and it consented to a final judgment in the SEC action, pursuant to which it will disgorge approximately $22.97 million, inclusive of prejudgment interest. The company agreed to implement numerous specific changes to its internal controls and compliance systems and to retain a compliance monitor for at least 18 months. The government acknowledged the company’s voluntary disclosure, cooperation, and extensive internal investigation.
SEC Administrative Action Resolves Foreign Bribery Allegations
On October 24, the SEC released a cease-and-desist order that resolves FCPA allegations against a Michigan-based medical technology company. The SEC alleged that the company’s subsidiaries in five different countries—Argentina, Greece, Mexico, Poland, and Romania—bribed doctors, health care professionals, and other government officials to obtain or retain business. The alleged activities involved approximately $2.2 million in direct payments, travel and conference expenses, and donations to a university associated with a foreign official made over a four-and-a-half year period. The SEC investigation found that the payments were incorrectly described as legitimate expenses in the company’s books and records and were described as, among other things, charitable donations, consulting and service contracts, travel expenses, commissions, and legal expenses. Without admitting the allegations, the company agreed to disgorge approximately $7.5 million in profits obtained through the alleged activities, and to pay a $3.5 million civil penalty plus an additional $2.3 million in pre-judgment interest.
SEC Announces Compliance Penalties Against Investment Advisory Firms, Executives
On October 23, the SEC announced penalties totaling $400,000 against three investment advisory firms and their executives for allegedly repeatedly ignoring problems with their compliance programs, which the SEC deemed inadequate to prevent misleading statements in marketing materials or inadvertent overbilling of clients. The penalties ranged from $25,000 for individuals to $100,000 for one of the firms. Among other things, the SEC highlighted the following deficiencies, which varied among the firms: (i) failing to complete annual compliance reviews, (ii) making misleading statements on company’s website and investor brochures by overstating the amount of assets under management while contradicting the amount the firm presented in its SEC filing, (iii) failing to adopt and implement written compliance policies and procedures, (iv) making false and misleading disclosures about historical performance, compensation, and conflicts of interest, (v) repeatedly over- and under-billing clients, (vi) failing to disclose known compliance deficiencies to potential clients in response due diligence questionnaires or requests for proposals, (vii) inflating the amounts of assets under management in SEC filings, and (viii) improperly removing and retaining nonpublic personal client information by an executive who left one of the firms. In addition to agreeing to the penalties, the firms agreed to hire compliance consultants and adopt specific compliance enhancements. The SEC took the actions as part of its Compliance Program Initiative, which targets firms that fail to effectively act upon SEC warnings about compliance deficiencies.
Federal Authorities Announce Two BSA/AML Enforcement Actions
This week, federal authorities announced the assessment of civil money penalties against two financial institutions for alleged Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) compliance failures. In the first action, FinCEN and the OCC alleged that a national bank failed to file suspicious activity reports (SARs) from April 2008 to September 2009 for activity in accounts belonging to a law firm through which one of the firm’s principals ran a Ponzi scheme. The agencies claim that the bank willfully violated the BSA’s reporting requirements by failing to detect and adequately report suspicious activities in a timely manner, even when the bank’s anti-money laundering surveillance software identified the suspicious activity (the bank subsequently filed five late SARs related to this conduct in 2011). FinCEN and the OCC assessed concurrent $37.5 million penalties. The FinCEN penalty is the first assessed by that agency’s recently created Enforcement Division. In addition, the SEC charged the bank and a former executive with related securities violations and ordered the bank to pay an additional $15 million penalty and to cease and desist from the alleged activity, including providing misleading information to investors as to amounts of money in particular accounts and actions the bank had taken to limit fraudulent activity.
In a second action, coordinated among FinCEN, the OCC, and the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, federal authorities assessed $8.2 million in total penalties against a now defunct community bank for compliance failures related to Mexican and Dominican Republic money exchange houses. The government alleged that the bank willfully violated the BSA by (i) failing to implement an effective AML program reasonably designed to manage risks of money laundering and other illicit activity, (ii) failing to conduct adequate due diligence on foreign correspondent accounts, and (iii) failing to detect and adequately report suspicious activities in a timely manner. FinCEN and the OCC assessed concurrent $4.1 million penalties, and the DOJ will collect an additional $4.1 million through civil asset forfeiture.
State, Federal Authorities Increase Scrutiny of Virtual Currencies, Emerging Payment Providers
On August 12, New York Department of Financial Services (NY DFS) Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky issued a notice of inquiry about the “appropriate regulatory guidelines that [the NY DFS] should put in place for virtual currencies.” The NY DFS notes the emergence of Bitcoin and other virtual currency as the catalyst for its inquiry, and the notice states that the NY DFS already has “conducted significant preliminary work.” That preliminary work includes 22 subpoenas the NY DFS reportedly issued last week to companies associated with Bitcoin.
The NY DFS is concerned that virtual currency exchangers may be engaging in money transmission as defined in New York. Under existing New York law, and the laws of a majority of other states, companies engaged in money transmission must obtain a license, post collateral, submit to periodic examinations, and comply with anti-money laundering laws. However, the NY DFS also suggests that regulating virtual currency under existing money transmission rules may not be the most beneficial approach. Instead, it is considering “new guidelines that are tailored to the unique characteristics of virtual currencies.” The NY DFS notice does not provide any timeline for further action on these issues.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs is reviewing federal policy as it relates to virtual currencies. On August 12, the leaders of that committee, Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano regarding federal virtual currency policy. The committee reportedly sent similar letters to the DOJ, the Federal Reserve Board, the Treasury Department, the SEC, the CFTC, and the OMB. Citing a federal court’s recent holding that Bitcoin is money or currency for the purpose of determining jurisdiction under the Securities Act of 1933, as well as other recent developments related to virtual currencies, the lawmakers seek information about (i) the agencies’ existing policies on virtual currencies, (ii) coordination among federal or state entities related to the treatment of virtual currencies, and (iii) “any plans,” “strategies,” or “ongoing initiatives” regarding virtual currencies. The letter specifically notes the importance of balancing the need to deal with “potential threats and risks . . . swiftly” with the goal of ensuring that “rash or uninformed actions don’t stifle a potentially valuable technology.”
This recent scrutiny of virtual currencies follows regulatory and enforcement actions taken earlier this year, including guidance issued by FinCEN and federal criminal charges against a digital currency issuer and money transfer system. For a review of those actions and other state and federal regulatory challenges facing emerging payment providers, please see a recent article by BuckleySandler attorney and Ian Spear.