FINCEN and OCC Announce Civil Money Penalties Against Bank for Violations of the Bank Secrecy Act

FinCen and the OCC recently announced civil money penalties against a bank for failing to adopt and implement an effective Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering system of internal controls, to ensure ongoing compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act.  FinCen imposed an $8 million civil money penalty, while OCC imposed a $1 million civil money penalty.  Although the Bank had an Anti-Money Laundering Program during the relevant period, the program was not adequately implemented or resourced.  As a result, Bank analysts did not devote adequate time and attention to the case alerts generated by the bank’s automated AML monitoring system. As a result of this failure, the bank failed to complete suspicious activity reports for approximately $100 million of suspicious activities. As many of the facts and circumstances underlying the OCC’s civil penalty also form the basis of FinCEN’s Consent Order, FinCEN agreed to credit the $1 million civil penalty imposed by the OCC. Taken together, the Bank will pay a total of $8 million to the U.S. Treasury as a penalty for its violations, with $7 million representing FinCEN’s penalty and $1 million representing the OCC’s penalty.