- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2022-08-25T17:47:00
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.
Monique Thacker, an HSBC Bank employee since 2013 and a woman of Indian descent, made the allegations in a discrimination lawsuit filed Aug. 19 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She seeks a jury trial to weigh her claims and determine compensatory damages.
Thacker claimed in her lawsuit she raised concerns in April regarding the unauthorized use of WhatsApp by two private banking employees, less than a week after the bank issued a warning to all employees not to use unauthorized communication channels to conduct firm business. Thacker claimed the two employees were denigrating the compliance department in their WhatsApp chat.
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HSBC was fined $45 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over allegations its traders used manipulative and deceptive trading practices. The bank and its subsidiaries were separately fined $30 million by the CFTC for business use of off-channel communications by employees.
Eleven banks, investment firms, and their affiliates will pay a total of more than $1.8 billion in fines for “widespread and longstanding failures” in monitoring, maintaining, and preserving electronic communications by employees.
Big Four audit firm PwC is being sued by one of its employees for more than £200,000 (U.S. $234,000) after he injured himself at a post-work drink event in 2019. The incident is not the first where “team-bonding” efforts have proven problematic.
Two pairs of claimants will receive whistleblower awards totaling more than $98 million and $24 million, respectively, for information they provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission that led to an enforcement action.
Discrimination against whistleblowers in the U.K. has risen to such a level that the government may need to actively pursue plans to afford greater legal protection, as well as introduce financial awards to compensate for their “career suicide.”
The Department of Justice released the details of its long-awaited corporate whistleblower awards pilot program that will prioritize reporting in areas of corporate crime not currently covered by existing whistleblower programs.
