WASHINGTON, D.C.—Dennis M. Kelleher, Cofounder, President and CEO, issued the following statement in connection with actions taken today by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and other federal agencies against TD Bank for deficiencies in the bank’s Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance program.

“Today’s actions and financial penalties against TD Bank, totaling more than $3 billion and imposing an asset cap for outrageous and brazen illegal conduct, are a big and long overdue win for Main Street Americans and the financial system. Regulators and prosecutors rightly recognized the gravity of the bank’s decade-long knowing and flagrant criminal conduct that facilitated the laundering of tens of millions of dollars. A big bank engaging in criminal conduct has finally been properly punished, but failing to charge individual banking supervisors and executives is wrong and dumb. That sends the wrong message: big banks can still buy get-out-of-jail-free cards for their executives by paying big fines and agreeing to other penalties. Corporate and white-collar crime will never be deterred until bank supervisors and executives are personally meaningfully punished, including fines that make them penniless and put them in jail.

“The sanctions on the bank are serious punishment, including:

• The largest financial penalty ever imposed on a bank for anti-money laundering law violations;
• An asset cap that prevents the bank from growing until it complies with remedial actions specified by regulators;
• Asset cap reductions if the bank fails to comply with the remedial actions;
• Business restrictions, including limits on opening new branches;
• Limits on dividend payments;
• A third-party assessment of the bank’s BSA/AML program to identify past misconduct that went unreported; and
• A ban on rehiring individual employees that participated in the misconduct.

“It is vitally important to meaningfully punish banks that break the law or have policies that are so weak and ineffective that they allow criminals to have access to the banking system, as Better Markets has emphasized previously. In this case, TD Bank prioritized profits over doing the right thing, and we applaud the regulators and prosecutors for applying appropriately severe punishments.

“However, the fact that none of the bank’s supervisors or executives were named in today’s actions is a big failure. The illegal conduct at TD Bank happened because bank executives and supervisors failed repeatedly and year after year for more than ten years. While prosecutors said they charged more than two dozen individuals, including two bank insiders who accepted bribes, that is not enough.

“Handcuffing minnows while letting the whales go free is not justice and will not deter those who have the power at banks to ensure that they are following the law. Until those individuals are held personally accountable, illegal and even criminal behavior will continue. We are encouraged by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) assurance that the investigations are ongoing, and that no individual involved in TD Bank’s illegal conduct is off limits. However, we have heard this often before from DOJ and nothing has ever come of it. It is past time that DOJ gets serious about deterring crime before it happens and that will require prosecuting, convicting, and sending individual bank supervisors and executives to jail.”

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Better Markets is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to promote the public interest in the financial markets, support the financial reform of Wall Street and make our financial system work for all Americans again. Better Markets works with allies—including many in finance—to promote pro-market, pro-business and pro-growth policies that help build a stronger, safer financial system that protects and promotes Americans’ jobs, savings, retirements and more. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.org.