Financial Regulatory Forum

By Gordon Schnell and Marlene Koury, Thomson Reuters Accelus contributing authors

NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Two recent and conflicting court decisions leave an open question over exactly who is covered by the Dodd-Frank Act whistleblower protections.

Under the recently implemented whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, whistleblowers who report violations of the securities laws are supposed to be protected from being fired. These protections — which can include reinstatement, double back pay and special damages — are designed to serve as an incentive for whistleblowers to come forward despite the risk that they will be retaliated against for exposing their employers’ wrongdoing. (more…)

By Julie DiMauro and Stuart Gittleman

NEW YORK, Sept. 21 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - U.S.-based financial services institutions that don’t tell law enforcement agencies about having been victimized by cybercrime are compromising the nation’s security as well as that of their firms, a top Department of Justice official warned this week.

The remarks on Wednesday by Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general for the department’s criminal division, came as a financial industry group warned banks to be on heightened alert for cyber attacks after Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase experienced unexplained outages on their public websites. (more…)

By Brett Wolf

NEW YORK, Sept. 21 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - When former Justice Department official Jennifer Shasky Calvery takes the reins at the U.S. Treasury Department’s anti-money laundering bureau on Monday, her first job is to revive the beleaguered agency amid pressure over Iran sanctions and money-laundering enforcement, sources said.

Shasky Calvery is a former prosecutor who cut her teeth dismantling international organized crime groups and tracking down their money. She will need all her leadership and diplomacy skills to boost the bureau’s morale, which has plummeted with the loss of skilled leaders and withering criticism from many fronts, and outline the policies with which she will make her mark as the new head of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). (more…)

By Bora Yagiz

NEW YORK, Sept. 19 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - The question what distinguishes a “trading account” from a legitimate liquidity management program will be a primary concern as no less than four regulators, namely the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, finish work on the “Volcker rule” limiting risky trading by banks. The regulators jointly proposed last year the provisions for implementing section 619 of the Dodd Frank Act. Final rules are expected by year end.

The July 2012 statutory deadline for what is commonly referred to as the Volcker rule has already been missed, and the 298-pages of proposed rules have attracted more than 17,000 comment letters and sparked a heated debate across the industry. This is because the regulators aim for a complete overhaul of trading activities by severely restraining any “banking entity” from “proprietary trading,” thereby preventing undue risk exposure of consumers’ and taxpayers’ money.

The devil will be in the interpretation of many of these rules. The definition of “trading account” will likely be the most critical premise, as the rest of the rules will be built upon it.

By Jason Wallace

NEW YORK, Sept. 12 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - California has broadened registration exemptions for private-fund advisers in a final rule adopted by the state Department of Corporations that considers the manager and its fund-investor characteristics rather than “assets under management” (AUM) or the number of clients.

The move aims to minimize regulatory requirements on a venture-capital industry considered to be a lifeblood for the emerging firms that fuel California’s high-tech economy, and responds to changes in registration requirements under national Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. (more…)

By Stuart Gittleman

NEW YORK, Sept. 12 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Rewards like the $104 million the Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday it would pay a convicted felon would not occur under a similar Securities and Exchange Commission program, a former official who helped develop the program told Compliance Complete. (more…)

By Suzanne Barlyn

CORONADO, Calif., (Reuters) – Wall Street’s brokerages are falling short when it comes to policing their brokers, according to a nationwide series of examinations by state regulators.

The biggest issue: Many firms are not following their own procedures for keeping employees in check. (more…)

By Julie DiMauro

NEW YORK, Sept. 6 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Retaliation against workplace whistleblowers is rising sharply, expanding into previously safe categories of employees such as senior-level managers and even in workplaces with notably strong ethical cultures, a study found.

The trend comes as new regulations require more formal reporting channels for internal whistleblowing and more managers use them, study sponsors said. They recommended that companies more closely monitor what happens to whistleblowers after they report. (more…)

By Aruna Viswanatha and Brett Wolf

WASHINGTON/ST. LOUIS, Sept. 5 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Benjamin Lawsky’s surprise move against Standard Chartered in an Iran sanctions case may have stunned the banking world, but it is unlikely to expand the scope of a series of similar U.S. cases against European banks that are still in the pipeline.
Lawsky, the New York state bank regulator, stunned the British bank, its shareholders and other U.S. authorities when he moved ahead last month with his own case against Standard Chartered, accused of hiding transactions involving Iran, which is under U.S. trade and economic sanctions. (more…)

By Ted Knutson

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Post-Hurricane Katrina disaster preparations helped banks weather the storm after last week’s Hurricane Isaac, Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions (Bank) Division Chief Examiner Sid Seymour told Thomson Reuters Monday.

“After Katrina in 2005, some bank locations were closed for weeks. But Isaac came in on the 29th, we had banks in the coastal parishes that were closed that day, on the next, bank staffers were doing damage (recovery) the next day and the day after, most locations were reopen,” the head state bank examiner said. (more…)