- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2023-05-11T19:28:00
The Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC were fined $22.5 million and $15 million, respectively, by U.S. regulators on Thursday for admitted recordkeeping failures regarding employee use of off-channel communications to conduct company business.
The Bank of Nova Scotia (also known as Scotiabank) and its affiliate, Scotia Capital USA, were fined a collective $15 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and an additional $7.5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for longstanding failures to properly maintain, preserve, or produce records and for failing to provide proper oversight of employees use of off-channel communications on personal cell phones and messaging platforms, including WhatsApp.
HSBC Securities was fined $15 million by the SEC for similar compliance failures.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have indicated they will be more forgiving to financial services firms that voluntarily self-report recordkeeping violations and take remedial actions before being asked to do so.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission continued their crackdown on financial firms’ recordkeeping failures regarding employee use of off-channel communications with $555 million in total fines levied against nine institutions and their affiliates.
BNP Paribas disclosed it reached proposed settlements with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission regarding alleged use of off-channel communications for business by employees.
DaVita, a multi-state dialysis provider, agreed to pay more than $34 million to resolve allegations it engaged in numerous kickback schemes to doctors who referred Medicare patients to its dialysis centers, the Department of Justice announced.
A multi-state hospice home health provider agreed to pay $19.4 million to settle allegations that it paid kickbacks and knowingly billed federal health programs to treat non-terminally ill patients.
California-based cancer testing company Guardant Health agreed to pay more than $945,000 to settle allegations levied by the Department of Justice of violating the False Claims Act and Stark Law.
