-Wells Fargo & Co will pay fines of about $97.8 million for inadequate oversight of its compliance risks, enabling the apparent violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, Syria, and Sudan. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the bank’s poor oversight enabled it to violate U.S. sanctions by providing a trade finance platform to a foreign bank that used it to process $532 million in prohibited transactions.
The Fed fined Wells Fargo $67.8 million, while OFAC fined the bank $30 million for inadequate oversight of its compliance risks from 2010 to 2015.
In a release, OFAC said that Wells Fargo and its predecessor, Wachovia Bank, provided a European bank with software beginning in 2008 that allowed the firm to process 124 transactions involving sanctioned individuals or jurisdictions.
In December, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau charged Wells Fargo civil penalty as part of a $3.7 billion agreement to settle charges over widespread mismanagement of car loans, mortgages and bank accounts.
Jeffrey Newman is a whistleblower lawyer who handles cases in the SEC, CFTC, and FINCEN whistleblower programs and under the False Claims Act (FCA). He can be reached at 617-823-3217
