- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2023-11-29T21:55:00
There are a slew of compliance lessons to be learned from the $4.3 billion settlement that Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, reached with a handful of U.S. government agencies.
The largest of those lessons is the significant penalties and company leadership, including the chief compliance officer, held personally responsible for their alleged attempts to evade U.S. laws to hold onto the exchange’s most valuable clients.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) detailed in its charging document how Binance did not comply with U.S. laws and regulations related to the anti-money laundering (AML) provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act, which also requires new customers to be vetted and transactions to be monitored for suspicious activities.
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Why the wild disparity in the sentences of Binance’s Changpeng Zhao and FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried? Aaron Nicodemus argues the performance of the compliance teams at the two cryptocurrency exchanges was as big a contrast as the penalties earned by their respective founders.
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada imposed a penalty of approximately CAD$6 million (U.S. $4.4 million) against crypto platform Binance over alleged noncompliance with the country’s anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism law.
Fraud remains the leading form of identity-related suspicious activity cited in Bank Secrecy Act reports by a large margin, while technologies enable greater overall risks around exploitation, according to new research from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
USAA Federal Savings Bank has been hit with its third cease and desist order from the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the past five years for failing to correct unsafe and unsound banking practices.
Becton Dickinson medical device company will pay $175 million for “repeatedly” misleading investors about its Alaris infusion pump, a product the company knew was flawed and was sold without the required patient-safety approvals, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged bankrupt fashion retailer Express with failing to disclose nearly $1 million in perks to a former chief executive, but did not levy a financial penalty thanks to its cooperation, the SEC said.
