The penalty levied by the New York Department of Financial Services is the largest money laundering fine ever collected by a single regulator. The settlement followed highly-publicised allegations of around a $250 billion of transaction tied to Iran, and it marks a new chapter in the era of increased scrutiny of regulatory evasion, reports US publication Corporate Counsel.

New kid on the block

The watchdog was only created nine months ago, when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo merged the state’s banking and insurance departments, claiming the move would ‘better regulate modern financial services organisations’.
Commentators have been assessing the impact of the fine. ‘New York has a lot of power, and can exert a lot of control, but it hasn’t historically,’ Fordham University School of Law professor Annemarie McAvoy, a former federal prosecutor and a former in-house counsel at Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, told the magazine.
But this settlement potentially changes that position. The Department of Financial Services, Ms McAvoy adds, ‘wanted to make a statement here. They’re now a player’.