In this brief post, the focus will be on updating the stories we have covered in the past here in Financial Regulation Matters regarding Wells Fargo and their performance over the past decade or so. The last time we covered the scandal that has blighted Wells Fargo’s progression was in May of last year, and since then there have been a number of developments. However, very recently, the bank has received a number of fines which demonstrate the failures that have left the bank struggling to regain the trust it needs to move forward. We last looked at Wells Fargo this time last year, and in that post we looked at the actions of a bank who fraudulently created between 2 and 3.5 million fake bank accounts for the purposes of selling services to customers who often were not aware of the actions taken on their behalf. We covered the details of the fraud in those previous posts, so today it is worth looking at the legal reaction to that fraud. We begin at the end of last month when t...

The case of Carillion has made for a number of posts here in Financial Regulation Matters , ranging from the commencement of the crisis to the fallout, both in regards to the effect upon the sector and also the effect upon the pension fund and the protective framework that exists to protect pension holders from these sorts of crises . However, news that broke today concerning the performance of the pensions regulator in the U.K. and, specifically, its performance in the previous few years regarding the ever-deteriorating situation at Carillion has brought the pensions regulator’s performance to the forefront of discussions. In today’s post, we will review this breaking news and further examine the pensions regulator as, one would assume, the crisis continues and associated authorities are dragged further into the mire in relation to this massive collapse. Rather than restart the examination of Carillion in any great detail, it is best to start with the issue at hand. Today’s n...

The second post today is a short follow up from a post earlier in the year that looked at the leniency of the deterrent selected for the accounting industry. In that post we looked at how the SEC and the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) were handing out ‘record fines’ of £5m here or $6 million there, something which onlookers noted was ‘ less than half a day’s work ’ for these top-four Auditors. Therefore, you can imagine this author’s delight when reading the headline in the Financial Times yesterday that a ‘ review recommends larger fines for accountancy firms ’; yet, regular readers of Financial Regulation Matters know that there was no such delight, because the rest of the article could have been written without one having read it. Obviously, the article goes on to confirm that, as suspected, the increase in fines was not really worthy of a headline, if the increase even goes ahead at all. In the report commissioned by the FRC and led by for Court of Appeal Judge Christ...

Today’s post can be seen as somewhat of a ‘round-up’ of recent news concerning the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). With the FCA featuring considerably in the news recently – amid the obvious cries of ‘what’s new!’ – it is worth discussing these particular elements for the purpose of asking some abstract, potential philosophical questions like ‘what is the role of the regulator in reality ?’. The FCA has figured heavily already here in Financial Regulation Matters , particularly in relation to the regulator’s actions with regards to the ever-increasing debt bubble , and also the conduct of RBS a. in general and b. in relation to the ‘ controversial ’ i.e. potentially criminal ‘ Global Restructuring Group ’ and its systemic destruction of many small businesses. So, in furtherance of these analyses, the following provides ‘updates’, for want of a better term, to the developing progression of the FCA as a leading regulator in the U.K. There are a number of stories recently that ...

In today’s post the focus will be on the banking sector and, by focusing on three current issues, provides an overview of recent developments within this particular sector. By looking at the issues surrounding Barclays, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Lloyds, and RBS, a picture will be painted that details the need to ask much deeper questions about the role the banking sector plays within society and, perhaps more introspectively, the relationship between big business and humanity. Going through the issues in no particular order, the first stop in today’s journey takes us to Barclays, with the news emerging that Red Kite Management, the world’s largest metals hedge fund, is suing the British Bank for ‘ alleged market abuse in the copper market ’, which it claims has cost the company at least £650 million between 2010 and 2013. The company’s claim, according to documents filed with the High Court, is that the Bank allowed some of its staff to share confidential information with the Ba...