The Bank of New York Mellon will pay nearly $15 million to settle charges that it violated a U.S. anti-bribery law by granting internship positions to relatives of foreign clients. In an order published Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused the bank of awarding paid and unpaid positions to secure its stewardship over an unspecified Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund. BNY Mellon circumvented compliance reviews and standard practices to hire the unqualified individuals, the agency said. "Senior [bank] managers were able to approve hires requested by foreign officials with no mechanism to ensure that potential hiring violations...
Growing U.S. efforts to hold corporations accountable for bribery and other forms of financial misconduct are likely to result in an uptick in punitive actions against businesses, say three FBI agents.
print