August 3, 2016
HSBC has admitted it is breaching a US regulator’s order to bolster its defences against financial crime as the UK’s biggest bank announced a slump in first-half profits in “turbulent” markets. A series of legal disclosures alongside its interim results confirmed it had received requests for information from various regulators around the world in relation to Mossack Fonseca, the Panama law firm linked to tax-haven companies, and was continuing to be investigated for the tax avoidance activities of its Swiss arm.
Among the legal disclosures is a reference to an order agreed in October 2010 with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that required the bank to “establish an effective compliance risk management programme across HSBC’s US businesses”.