Bank ordered to explain SAR activity

Just sharing

Bank ordered to explain SAR activity

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/...r-activity.html

Now that is interesting...and here I thought SARs in open court were not allowed...

I found this interesting that the judge would make this a demand:



I don't think she understands that, while the OCC can compel a bank to just about anything, there is no reciprocity in the relationship.

Having said that, I suspect there is more to the story on why the communication between the judge and the bank is a bit...., rough.

I would just give this to the judge and go tell her to pound sand.....

§ 103.18 Reports by banks of suspicious transactions.

(A) The disclosure by a bank, or any director, officer, employee, or agent of a bank, of:

(2) Prohibition on disclosures by government authorities. A Federal, state, local, territorial, or tribal government authority, or any director, officer, employee, or agent of any of the foregoing, shall not disclose a SAR, or any information that would reveal the existence of a SAR, except as necessary to fulfill official duties consistent with Title II of the Bank Secrecy Act. For purposes of this section, “official duties” shall not include the disclosure of a SAR, or any information that would reveal the existence of a SAR, in response to a request for disclosure of non-public information or a request for use in a private legal proceeding, including a request pursuant to 31 C.F.R. 1.11.

I hope the newspaper prints a follow-up on this story.

something tells me this bank has irritated this judge before and she ain't going to put up with no shenanigans from them...(sorry, I must watch too much Judge Judy)

I'm no lawyer, but I think defense counsel should read this and present it to the judge.

http://tinyurl.com/82v4hgz

Sounds pretty clear cut to me.

Here is an update

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/...or-td-bank.html

Now, that makes a little more sense.

And it's good that the article clarified the distinction between the bank's internal fraud monitoring alerts (the piece that really matters in this case), and the SARs, and stressed that any SARs would be absolutely confidential.

But more importantly, it's good that the bank was able to get this point across in court!

Thanks Retread

The theory of the case is that it's the bank's fault that some people got defrauded in a Ponzi scheme. The irony of the case is that if the bank was filing continuation SARs on this dude for the entire period of time it would not be allowed to say so.

They may be fighting the production of that which they would most like to deliver.

Princess Romeo's observation about the bank's inability to manage it's regulator's level of responsiveness is insightful. If the OCC (or FinCEN) wanted to join the fray they could file their own amicus curiea brief with the court and clarify the situation pretty quickly.

It still seems to me that TD was dragging its heals and being uncooperative. Finding reports on the eve of a trial - really? I've worked for 3 very large FI's and each of them had extremely knowledgeable staff who knew all the reports used to generate an investigation. There is no reason that TD could not provide the reports showing what triggered an investigation (with any SAR decisioning and activity redacted) which looks to be what the judge is after.