- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2022-08-08T17:35:00
Morgan Stanley has reached agreements in principle totaling $200 million with two U.S. regulators to settle charges its employees used messaging platforms not approved by the financial services company.
In a regulatory filing Friday, Morgan Stanley said it reached a $125 million agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and will pay an additional $75 million to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) “to resolve record-keeping related investigations by those agencies relating to business communications on messaging platforms that had not been approved by the firm.”
The impending enforcement action follows a similar case announced in December, in which JPMorgan Chase was fined a total of $200 million by the SEC and CFTC for failure to maintain records of communications on securities, commodities, and swaps business matters made on bank employees’ personal devices. The regulators concluded the practice occurred over several years and was widespread among all levels of employees, including at the senior level.
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Morgan Stanley Smith Barney agreed to pay $35 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges it repeatedly disregarded the safeguarding of clients’ personal data in decommissioning local storage devices.
Monique Thacker, a current HSBC Bank USA executive, claimed in a federal lawsuit she was discriminated and retaliated against for raising regulatory violations involving unauthorized communications by bank employees that were downplayed or ignored by management.
U.S. regulators have signaled through an impending widespread enforcement sweep they are zeroing in on banker use of messaging apps to discuss business matters. The cases emphasize the need for financial services firms to enhance their monitoring and recordkeeping.
Eight business executives, including the billionaire owner of Indian energy company Adani Group, were charged with fraud for their alleged roles in a multi-million bribery scheme to win a solar energy contract in India.
Three months after a U.S. district judge declared Google to be running a monopoly, the Department of Justice recommended the tech giant be forced to sell off its popular Chrome browser as part of an effort to resolve antitrust concerns and reshape the power of tech’s biggest companies.
A bank examiner and senior manager at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond pled guilty to insider trading after allegedly misappropriating confidential information on seven banks to make profitable trades.
