Wells Fargo scandal: US bank regulator fines three former executives over fake accounts
A U.S. banking regulator said on Tuesday it had fined three former executives at Wells Fargo WFC.N for their roles in the bank's long-running fake accounts scandal.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said Claudia Russ Anderson, the bank's former community bank group risk officer, would be fined $10 million and prohibited from working in the banking industry. David Julian, the bank's former chief auditor and Paul McLinko, its former executive audit director, were fined $7 million and $1.5 million, respectively.
The trio had been previously charged by the OCC in 2020, alongside other former senior leadership of the bank, but had opted not to settle. The regulator had previously fined eight other former bank executives, including former CEO John Stumpf, a total of $43.2 million.
Lawyers for the three did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Wells Fargo spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, the OCC said Russ Anderson failed to credibly challenge the bank's incentive compensation program, which regulators found encouraged employees to create bank accounts for customers without their knowledge. The OCC said she "repeatedly and consistently downplayed" the misconduct, and also failed to provide information to regulators when examining the bank.
The OCC said Julian and McLinko failed to effectively audit the bank in a way that would have detected the misconduct, and failed to escalate the issues.
Reporting by Pete Schroeder and Chris Prentice; Editing by Chris Reese and Rod Nickel