Season 6, Episode 1: $2 billion in fines, for texts

This episode examines a crackdown by U.S. regulators against “off-channel” communications on Wall Street. In September 11 major firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America were fined a total of $1.8 billion for regulatory violations involving the use of unauthorized communications including texts and WhatsApp instant messages. The violations involved tens of thousands of messages sent or received by senior trading desk managers and their staff, raising the prospect that they could be used to evade protections against misconduct such as insider trading. In this episode of Compliance Clarified, Randall Mikkelsen, managing editor for North America, is joined by Henry Engler, senior regulatory intelligence expert for Regulatory Intelligence, to examine the roots of the problem and the challenges compliance professionals face in combating it. The "Compliance Clarified" podcast series covers the wide range of topics which affect compliance officers in financial services firms. The series has been designed to help compliance officers make sense of the often-challenging world of financial services regulation, which is now overlaid with expectations not found in the black and white of any rulebook. The role and remit of the compliance officer is ever-growing, and senior compliance officers have had to become polymaths, mastering not only detailed subject matter expertise but also the qualitative mysteries of culture and conduct risk. Compliance Clarified covers the hot topics of the day and the challenges they bring, and aims to offer up practical ideas for emerging good practice.