Financial Institution Fraud

October 19, 2021

JPay, a financial services company which, among other services, provides debit cards to prisoners to meet their essential needs as they are released from incarceration, will pay $6 million – $4 million in restitution and $2 million as a civil penalty – to resolve allegations that they violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act and Electronic Fund Transfer Act by charging consumers unlawful fees.  As part of the settlement, JPay is also limited in fees it can impose on release cards going forward.  CFPB

September 27, 2021

Citibank, N.A. and Citigroup Global Markets Limited, which are provisionally registered swap dealers, will pay a $1 million civil penalty to resolve allegations that they failed to properly report Legal Entity Identifier information to a swap data repository as required by applicable regulations.  In addition, Citi was found to have supervisory failures and to be out of compliance with a prior 2017 order on related matters.  CFTC

September 27, 2021

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. will pay $72.6 million to resolve claims that it violated the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (“FIRREA”) by overcharging commercial customers from 2010 to 2017 for foreign exchange (“FX”) service. The government alleged that the bank fraudulently marked up the prices on currency it was selling and marked down the prices on currency it was buying, and concealed those markups from customers through various misrepresentations and deceptive practices. The total settlement includes a $37.3 million civil penalty and forfeiture, as well as $35.3 million in restitution to customers.  USAO SDNY

August 30, 2021

KMS Financial Services Inc. will pay $200,000 to resolve SEC charges that the investment advisor and broker-dealer violated Regulation S-P regarding the safeguarding of customer records and information. The SEC alleged that between September 2018 and December 2019, email accounts of KMS personnel were taken over by unauthorized third parties, resulting in the exposure of personally identifying information of nearly 5,000 KMS customers and clients.  The SEC found that KMS failed to adopt written policies and procedures requiring additional firm-wide security measures until May 2020, and did not fully implement those additional security measures firm-wide until August 2020, placing additional customer and client records and information at risk.  SEC

August 30, 2021

Cambridge Investment Research Inc. and related entities will pay $250,000 to resolve SEC charges that the investment advisor and broker-dealer violated Regulation S-P regarding the safeguarding of customer records and information. The SEC alleged that between January 2018 and June 2021, email accounts of Cambridge personnel were taken over by unauthorized third parties, resulting in the exposure or potential exposure of personally identifying information of approximately 5,000 Cambridge customers and clients.  The SEC found that Cambridge discovered the first email account takeover in January 2018, but failed to adopt and implement firm-wide enhanced security measures for cloud-based email accounts until 2021, resulting in the exposure and potential exposure of additional customer and client records and information.  SEC

August 30, 2021

Cetera Advisor Networks LLC and related entities will pay $300,000 to resolve SEC charges that the investment advisor and broker-dealer violated Regulation S-P regarding the safeguarding of customer records and information and provision of breach notification to customers. The SEC alleged that between November 2017 and June 2020, email accounts of Cetera personnel were taken over by unauthorized third parties, resulting in the exposure of personally identifying information of more than 4,000 Cetera customers and clients.  The accounts were not protected with multi-factor authentication, even though Cetera’s policies required MFA.  SEC

August 17, 2021

Investment advisor Murchinson Ltd., together with associated individuals Marc Bistricer and Paul Zogala, will pay restitution, interest, and penalties totaling nearly $9 million to resolve allegations that they caused a hedge fund client to violate Regulation SHO regarding uncovered short sales and other problematic trading practices.  Respondents allegedly provided erroneous order-marking information, thereby causing the hedge fund brokers to mismark the hedge funds’ sales as “long,” and resulting in their failure to borrow or locate shares prior to executing the sales.  SEC