OCC imposes civil money penalties against 3 former Wells Fargo executives

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced enforcement actions against three former senior executives of Wells Fargo (WFC) Bank, N.A., Sioux Falls, South Dakota. These actions were taken in response to the former executives’ unsafe or unsound banking practices related to the bank’s systemic and widespread sales practices misconduct, the OCC said. The enforcement actions are described in two written decisions issued by Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael J. Hsu, covering Claudia Russ Anderson and jointly covering David Julian and Paul McLinko. The decision covering Ms. Anderson found that from 2013 to 2016, she failed to credibly challenge the bank’s incentive compensation program, failed to institute effective controls to manage risks posed by sales practices misconduct, failed to escalate known or obvious risks, and repeatedly and consistently downplayed the sales practices misconduct. A separate decision concluded that during the same period, Mr. Julian and Mr. McLinko failed to plan and manage audit activity that would detect and document sales practices misconduct and failed to adequately escalate the sales practices misconduct. The written decisions and orders stem from the Notice of Charges the OCC filed in January 2020, which began the administrative litigation. These are the remaining outstanding enforcement actions among those that the OCC pursued against 11 individuals related to the bank’s systemic and widespread sales practices misconduct. The OCC previously reached resolution with eight other former Wells Fargo senior bank executives, resulting in their payment of civil money penalties totaling $43,175,000.