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, federal authorities said on Thursday.
The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the bank's deficient 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.
“Wells Fargo is pleased to resolve this legacy matter
involving conduct that ended in 2015, which we voluntarily
self-reported and fully cooperated with OFAC and the Federal
Reserve Board to address," a Wells Fargo spokesperson said in a
statement.
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 hit Wells Fargo with the watchdog's
largest ever civil penalty
as part of a $3.7 billion agreement to settle charges over
widespread mismanagement of car loans, mortgages and bank
accounts.
(Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Richard
Chang)
