Several Wall Street firms, including Oppenheimer and US Bancorp, have agreed to pay over $81 million in fines to settle SEC charges of record-keeping failures related to employees' use of personal devices and apps like WhatsApp for work-related communications. The SEC's multi-year initiative has uncovered widespread off-channel communications, leading to fines totaling $1.7 billion since 2021. The firms admitted to the violations and are improving compliance policies and procedures.
The Philadelphia Sheriff's Office is unable to account for 185 firearms, including 76 service weapons, according to the city controller. The sheriff claims that only 20 weapons are missing, but the controller's office found no records to support this. The remaining missing guns are related to protection from abuse orders. The sheriff's office has been criticized for its poor record-keeping, with some questioning the timing of the report ahead of the sheriff's re-election.
U.S. regulators have imposed fines totaling $549 million on Wells Fargo and several other banks for failing to maintain electronic records of employee communications. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined 11 firms $289 million for record-keeping failures, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined four banks $260 million for not maintaining required records. This is part of regulators' ongoing efforts to crack down on the use of secure messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp by Wall Street employees. The fines bring the total penalties related to this issue to over $2 billion. Wells Fargo received the highest fines, totaling $200 million, and other banks fined include BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, and the Bank of Montreal. In addition to the fines, the banks must hire consultants to review their policies and cease future violations.
BNP Paribas is currently under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for potential violations of record-keeping provisions related to the use of messaging applications by its employees. The bank is in talks with regulators to settle the probes, which may result in fines. US regulators have been cracking down on Wall Street firms for the use of unapproved messaging platforms for business communications, with fines totaling $1.1 billion imposed last year.
