RBS Securities Inc. Agrees to Pay $35 Million Penalty Related to Securities Fraud Scheme

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/rbs-securities-inc-agrees-pay-35-million-penalty-related-securities-fraud-scheme

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Connecticut

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 26, 2017

RBS Securities Inc. Agrees to Pay $35 Million Penalty Related to Securities Fraud Scheme

Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, Christy Goldsmith Romero, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), and Patricia M. Ferrick, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, today announced that global securities firm RBS Securities Inc. and the U.S. Attorney’s Office have entered into a non-prosecution agreement relating to RBS’s fraudulent trading through its now-defunct U.S. Asset-Backed Securities, Mortgage-Backed Securities and Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities Trading group. As part of this agreement, RBS will pay a monetary penalty of $35 million and pay more than $9 million of restitution to victim customers, which include firms affiliated with recipients of federal bailout funds through the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The government’s investigation revealed that RBS – principally from its trading floor in Stamford, Connecticut – perpetrated a scheme from 2008 to 2013 to defraud its customers in trades of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs). The purpose and effect of RBS’s fraud was to increase its profits on RMBS and CLO trades at the expense of victim customers. RBS conducted this scheme by, through and with its employees, who acted with the knowledge, encouragement and participation of RBS supervisors or its compliance-related personnel.

RBS conducted its scheme in various ways. First, RBS misrepresented material facts to deceive and cheat its customers in trades. For instance, in certain transactions, RBS lied to the buyer about the seller’s asking price (or vice versa), keeping the difference between the price paid by the buyer and the price paid to the seller for RBS. In other transactions, RBS misrepresented to the buyer that bonds held in RBS’s inventory were being offered for sale by a fictitious third-party seller, which allowed RBS to charge the buyer an extra, unearned commission. Second, RBS instructed its RMBS and CLO traders in, and caused them to use, fraudulent trading practices. Third, RBS lied to victims who detected or suspected that they had been the victims of fraud. Fourth, RBS ignored or refused to act on complaints by its own employees who were not part of the scheme. Fifth, RBS used its purportedly independent proprietary trading operation, known as its “prop desk,” as an arm of its RMBS and CLO trading desk in order to deceive rival broker-dealers in trades, including by allowing its RMBS and CLO traders to direct the prop desk’s negotiations in the sale of bonds. Finally, RBS concealed its fraudulent conduct from its customers, and from its own employees who were not participants in the scheme, in order to prevent or delay discovery.
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Under the terms of the non-prosecution agreement, which was entered into on October 25, 2017, RBS agreed to pay a penalty of $35 million and make restitution to victims of at least $9,091,317.14. This resolution takes into account RBS’s voluntary self-reporting, extensive and continuing commitment to cooperate, acceptance of responsibility for its and its employees’ conduct, and remediation efforts. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not require RBS to retain an independent consultant to assess and improve RBS’s compliance and ethics program because RBS’s U.S. Asset-Backed Securities, Mortgage-Backed Securities and Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities Trading group substantially ceased operations in March 2015 and RBS has already taken steps to reasonably prevent and detect further fraud.
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