September 21, 2020

Warren Statement on BuzzFeed News Investigation of Global Financial Corruption

Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the following statement on BuzzFeed News' investigation revealing the deeply embedded corruption in our global financial system:

"Big banks and companies abuse legal loopholes and weak enforcement by regulators to profit from illegal and shady transactions for criminals and terrorists. We must root out this corruption by strengthening transparency of financial networks and clamp down on the dark money that flows through the global financial system," said Senator Warren. "We also need to go further to hold the executives of the giant banks accountable by passing my Ending Too Big to Jail Act to reform the deferred prosecution agreement system that has allowed these bankers to walk away with drop in the bucket settlements and slaps on the wrist, and to create a new investigative unit at Treasury to investigate these types of financial crimes." 

In 2018, Senator Warren introduced The Ending Too Big to Jail Act to create a permanent law enforcement unit to investigate crimes at financial institutions, require senior executives at banks with $10 billion or more in assets to certify annually that they have conducted due diligence and found no criminal conduct or civil fraud within the financial institution, and mandate judicial oversight of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs). She also supports the current provision in the House NDAA requiring the disclosure of beneficial ownership of shell companies. Her sweeping anti-corruption legislation will shut the revolving door between financial institutions and the regulators who are supposed to oversee U.S. transparency and money-laundering efforts. 

Senator Warren talked about the importance of strengthening our money-laundering laws in 2018, specifically citing Citigroup for stacking up on fines but doing nothing to crack down on money laundering. In 2013, Senator Warren called out regulators for giving HSBC a slap on the wrist instead of jail time for executives. 

###