Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Cyril Roux:

Right. Okay, so I will answer, you know, exactly, on enforcement ... on credit institutions ... so, since I arrived ... okay, I'll look at 2013 and 2014 ... 2013, Allied Irish Banks entered into a settlement with us for failing to ensure the accuracy of its liquidity reporting and to have internal controls in place and there are ... Allied Irish Banks admitted to the contraventions, they accepted a reprimand and penalty of €490,000. Citibank Europe entered into a settlement with us on contraventions of liquidity requirements and also paid a monetary penalty of half a million. In 2014, Ulster Bank had, as we know, IT governance failures as, you know, 600,000 customers were affected ... deprived of banking for close to a month and they accepted a reprimand and they got a maximum penalty we could inflict on them, which was €3.5 million. The maximum ... maximum is €5 million but when you come forward and you accept to enter into a settlement, you have a 30% discount, so €3.5 million was the maximum amount that we could settle with.

In 2014 we entered into two other settlements, UniCredit Bank for €300,000, and Bank of Montreal for €650,000. Now, there are other cases that are ongoing, and these are settlements, but there are other cases that are ongoing, and they ... the bigger the case, the longer it takes. And we have also cases where the party is not willing to settle, and so that has to be referred to inquiry. So it goes to the legal department and then it goes to inquiry and it's a very lengthy process of, you know, of enforcing penalties on these banks.