January 23, 2020

Senator Warren Statement on the OCC’s Plans to Charge Former Wells Fargo Managers in the Fake Accounts Scandal

Washington, DC -- United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the statement below following the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announcing its plans to charge former Wells Fargo managers involved in the fake accounts scam.

"Giant banks like Wells Fargo will only clean up their act when their executives know they'll face handcuffs when they preside over massive fraud," Senator Warren said. "Tomorrow morning, former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf will wake up to his cushy retirement while the thousands of low-level branch employees who took the fall for him -- and the hundreds of thousands of consumers who were cheated on his watch -- continue to deal with the repercussions of his scams."

Senator Warren has led the charge to hold Wells Fargo senior management accountable since the fake-accounts scandal from 2011 to 2015 came to light, and has fought for stronger consumer protections:

  • On September 20, 2016, Senator Warren called on former Wells Fargo CEO and Chairman John Stumpf to resign for his role in the fake accounts scandal. Mr. Stumpf resigned on October 12, 2016.
  • On June 19, 2017, Senator Warren sent a letter to then-Fed Chair Janet Yellen urging the Federal Reserve to remove 12 Wells Fargo board members following the fake accounts scandal.
    • At a Senate Banking Committee hearing on July 13, 2017, Senator Warren again called on Chair Yellen to remove implicated Wells Fargo board members.
    • Later in July 2017, Senator Warren renewed her call for the Fed to remove Wells Fargo board members after it was reported that more than 800,000 Wells Fargo customers were charged for auto insurance they did not need.
    • On August 16, 2017, Senator Warren again called for the removal of Wells Fargo board members amid new evidence that the bank failed to refund money owed to car loan customers, overcharged small businesses for credit card transactions, and billed certain mortgage customers for unexpected, optional services.
    • On February 2, 2018, Chair Yellen announced in response to Senator Warren that the Federal Reserve would freeze the growth of Wells Fargo and push out four of the board members responsible.
  • In March 2018, Senator Warren introduced the Ending Too Big to Jail Act to hold big bank executives accountable when the banks they lead break the law.
  • In March and April 2018, Senator Warren urged Federal Reserve  Chair Jerome Powell to hold a public vote by the Federal Reserve Board on lifting growth restrictions for Wells Fargo instead of delegating it to staff. She also asked for the public release of the third-party review of how Wells Fargo is implementing reforms.
    • In a response to Senator Warren on May 10, 2018, Chair Powell reconsidered and announced he would require a Federal Reserve  Board vote on whether to lift Wells Fargo's growth restrictions and said he would consider releasing as much of the third-party review as possible.
  • On October 18, 2018, Senator Warren urged Chair Powell to maintain the growth cap on Wells Fargo until Tim Sloan was replaced as CEO, citing eleven instances of serious misconduct at Wells Fargo while Mr. Sloan served in senior roles at the bank.
  • On January 17, 2019, Senator Warren questioned Tim Sloan on excessively high fees Wells Fargo charged college students.
    • On April 4, 2019, Wells Fargo announced it had eliminated some of these fees associated with campus debit cards.
  • On February 22, 2019, Senator Warren once again urged Chair Powell not to lift growth cap restrictions on Wells Fargo until Tim Sloan is removed from his role as CEO, citing a report revealing that, beginning in 2016, Wells Fargo employees "routinely falsified clients' signatures and otherwise doctored paperwork" in order to comply with a legal settlement with the OCC related to violations of anti-money laundering laws.
    • On March 22, 2019, Senator Warren called on the OCC and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to fire Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan and renewed her call for action by the Federal Reserve.
    • On March 28, 2019, Tim Sloan announced that he was stepping down as Wells Fargo CEO.
  • In April 2019, she reintroduced the Ending Too Big to Jail Act and introduced the Corporate Executive Accountability Act, legislation that would make executives of big corporations criminally liable if their companies commit crimes, harm large numbers of people through civil violations, or commit new violations while under the supervision of the court or a regulator for a previous violation.
  • On April 9, 2019, Senator Warren and Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) released new letters from the Fed, the OCC, and CFPB in response to inquiries that they sent the regulators in March 2019. The regulators told the senators that Wells Fargo has not satisfied its obligations under existing consent orders, which require the bank to remediate customers harmed by its wrongdoing and impose reforms to end Wells Fargo's unlawful activity.
  • On April 17, 2019, Senator Warren wrote to Joseph Otting, Comptroller of the Currency, requesting information about the role that the OCC will play in the selection of a new CEO and President of Wells Fargo.
    • In response to Senator Warren's letter, Comptroller Otting confirmed that the OCC would exercise its statutory authority to review the selection of a new CEO of Wells Fargo.
    • On May 15, 2019, Senator Warren pressed Comptroller Otting at a Banking Committee hearing to make the results of its statutory review public.
  • On August 20, 2019, Senator Warren sent a letter to Wells Fargo & Company requesting information about a new report that the bank kept accounts active for months after they had been closed by customers and charged customers hundreds or even thousands of dollars in overdraft fees for charges made against these "closed" accounts.
  • On August 30, 2019, Senator Warren sent letters to the CFPB, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting, expressing concern that Wells Fargo executives may have once again intentionally misled investors-this time about the strength of their customer base. Senator Warren also released Wells Fargo's response to a letter she sent on August 20th, in which interim Wells Fargo CEO Allan Parker confirmed that Wells Fargo is working with regulators to conduct a review of the activities described in the New York Times article.

###