The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has issued severe sanctions against three major audit firms and several auditors over failures in their audits of London Capital & Finance plc (LCF), the collapsed bond issuance firm that owes over £237 million to thousands of investors.
M1 Finance LLC, a Chicago-based broker-dealer firm, has been fined $400,000 by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for violating rules related to short selling and maintaining inaccurate books and records.
German travel company Hahn Air Lines GmbH and its American subsidiary Hahn Air USA Inc. have agreed to pay $26.8 million to settle claims they failed to remit millions of dollars in passenger fees owed to U.S. government agencies over a six-year period.
FINTRAC has hit The Toronto-Dominion Bank with a fine of $9,185,000 (CAD) for non-compliance and being in violation of the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act, the primary Canadian regulations that regulate money laundering. This action against Toronto Dominion is part of a wider reaching international probe attached to a United States Department of Justice investigation into the bank’s role in laundering hundreds of millions of dollars for Chinese fentanyl traffickers.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has announced a significant penalty against SoFi Securities LLC, amounting to $1.1 million, for multiple violations related to its customer identification and identity theft prevention programs. SoFi Securities, headquartered in San Francisco, California, and a member of FINRA since 2011, was found to have inadequately established and maintained protocols for its cash management brokerage account, SoFi Money, resulting in vulnerabilities to fraudulent activities.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has leveled charges against audit firm BF Borgers and its owner, Benjamin F. Borgers. The SEC alleges "deliberate and systemic failures" by the firm to maintain compliance with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) in over 1,500 SEC filings.
It was reported recently that Toronto-Dominion Bank has taken an initial $450 million provision for potential penalties stemming from an investigation into weaknesses in its anti-money laundering procedures at its U.S. operations.