© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The HSBC bank logo is seen in the Canary Wharf financial district in London, Britain, March 3, 2016. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause
(Reuters) – The US Federal Reserve on Thursday announced the end of a decade-long coercive action against HSBC Holdings Plc (LON:) for violating anti-money laundering rules and sanction laws.
The Fed said in a statement the enforcement order ended August 26.
HSBC did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
In 2012, the London-headquartered bank was allegedly turned into a “preferred financial institution” for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, money launderers and other wrongdoers through the what the U.S. Department of Justice called “astonishing failures in surveillance.”
HSBC later admitted it had failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and failed to conduct basic due diligence on some of its account holders and agreed to pay a record $1.92 billion fine to the lenders. US authorities.
The bank signed a five-year agreement in 2012, under which it pledged to strengthen anti-money laundering controls and sanctions.
At the end of 2017, HSBC said it had successfully upheld the terms of the agreement and that the DoJ would therefore file a motion to dismiss the fees that had been deferred under the agreement.
