The latest compliance news: regulatory developments, punishments, guidance, permissions and new product and service offerings.

OCC, Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo says regulators’ actions show that it has made important progress handling legacy issues linked to anti-money laundering.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has terminated a 2015 consent order related to the company’s Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) compliance program, Wells Fargo said in a statement earlier this week. 

“Building the right risk and control infrastructure and remediating our legacy issues remain our top priority, and the termination of this consent order is evidence of our progress,” Charlie Scharf said. “While we are pleased with this action, we have a significant amount of work ahead of us and are continuing to commit the necessary resources to this effort.”

The consent order required the bank to implement customer due diligence standards that include collecting current beneficial ownership information for certain business customers.

Wells Fargo said it “undertook significant work to remedy the deficiencies that gave rise to the consent order and to enhance its BSA/AML compliance program.”

Securities and Exchange Commission
The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced an award totaling more than $1.1 million to five whistleblowers who provided high-quality information that led to successful enforcement actions. The watchdog has awarded around $737 million to 133 individuals since issuing its first award in 2012.

In the first order, the SEC awarded three whistleblowers – whom it does not name for confidentiality reasons - almost $500,000 in connection with two related enforcement actions. The first whistleblower provided information that prompted the opening of an investigation. The second and third whistleblowers provided information that significantly contributed to the success of the actions, and contributed additional, helpful assistance to the investigative staff.

In the second order, the SEC awarded nearly $600,000 to a whistleblower whose information prompted the opening of an investigation. In the third order, the SEC awarded more than $100,000 to a whistleblower whose independent analysis led to a successful enforcement action. Among other things, the whistleblower conducted an analysis using information from publicly available documents to calculate an estimate of an important metric for a company, and then showed that the company's disclosures regarding that metric were implausible. This is the fifth individual in FY21 who received an award based on independent analysis.

"These awards underscore the breadth of ways that company insiders, as well as whistleblowers not affiliated with a company, can positively impact SEC investigations," Jane Norberg, chief of the SEC's Office of the Whistleblower, said.