Bank of New York Pays to Avoid Criminal Charges

The U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York began investigations of Bank of New York's actions in two separate criminal cases as early as 1998. Nine of the principals involved (including two former bank officers) have been indicted, tried, and convicted.

Since the start of the investigations, for nearly seven years, the directors, officers and staff at Bank of New York (BNY) have cooperated with the investigations, revised policies and procedures, realigned parts of the organization, and retrained staff members, all under the most intense regulatory, audit, and investigatory scrutiny. For all of that time, BNY has known that the bank itself could be prosecuted for its involvement. On November 8, 2005, the banking industry heard the "other shoe drop" when the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's office announced that Bank of New York (BNY) had agreed to a total of $38 million in penalties to avoid prosecution for its involvement in these cases.

The penalties and the publicly-released Agreement between BNY and the U.S. Attorneys provide another series of convincing arguments for all bankers to review and enhance their systems for detection, investigation, and reporting of criminal or suspicious activities.

The Southern District case involved money laundering and unlicensed transmission of billions of dollars originating in Russia through BNY accounts to transferees around the world. The Eastern District investigation involved fraudulent loan applications supported by hundreds of phony escrow agreements signed by BNY officers, resulting in losses of millions of dollars by lenders across the country. Twelve million dollars of the BNY payments are earmarked to reimburse those lenders.

The Agreement includes BNY's admission of involvement in the two schemes, and recites a list of allegations by the U.S. Attorneys offices for which the bank admits culpability. Key among the charges are those of failing to recognize, investigate, and report the criminal and suspicious activities that occurred quite literally "under BNY management's nose."

Summarized below are the principal admissions of guilt made by BNY in its Agreement signed November 4, 2005, along with the significant undertakings agreed to by the bank to improve its detection and reporting of suspicious and criminal activities.

BNY Admission BNY Remedial Action Aided and abetted RW Professional Leasing Services Corp. (PLS) by providing bogus escrow agreements used by PLS to file spurious medical equipment loan applications with other U.S. banks. Formation of management committee, headed by BNY president, to review actions of 67 involved employees; not to rehire either any employee dismissed because of the PLS matter or any disciplined employee who later resigned. Knowingly failed to file required SARs on learning of its employees' involvement in the PLS fraud activity.