France's decision to drop plans to launch a new corporate settlements program as part of a broader anti-corruption campaign could stymie future bank cooperation with investigators, according to industry experts.
A federal judge's questioning of the recent DPA between the U.S. Department of Justice and Barclays Bank, could signal that future agreements will be more expensive for financial institutions and more perilous for their top executives, according to legal analysts.
The United Kingdom's chief financial regulator Tuesday fined Barclays PLC more than $4 million for "serious weaknesses" in its securities transaction monitoring reporting, the largest penalty issued by the agency for such problems.
U.S. federal and state regulators told French bank Societe Generale to strengthen the anti-money laundering controls of its New York branch, including its dollar-clearing operations.
European and Asian governments must implement stronger due diligence standards, including the creation of databases on the assets of public officials, to root out corruption, a London-based non-profit organization said.
A Paris court convicted the National Bank of Pakistan and French Bank Societe Marseillaise de Credit on Thursday of failing to detect an 82 million euro money laundering scheme, according to the Associated Press.
UK-based institutions Barclays PLC and Lloyds TSB Bank both said last month that they were being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control for possible violations of sanctions against state sponsors of terror.
Banks seeking to acquire other financial institutions must carefully absorb, analyze and monitor the customer information and transaction history of its target not only to ensure it is paying a fair price but also to protect itself against possible regulatory trouble down the road.