CIBC Handed C$1.3 Million Administrative Penalty by Canada's Financial Intelligence Agency

By Robb M. Stewart

Canada's financial intelligence agency imposed a roughly 1.3 million Canadian dollar ($977,900) penalty against Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce for non-compliance with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing measures.

It marks the second penalty the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada has announced this week after an about C$7.4 million penalty was imposed against Royal Bank of Canada following a 2022 compliance examination.

The agency on Thursday said the administrative penalty against CIBC followed a compliance investigation in 2021 that claimed the big Canadian lender failed to submit a suspicious transaction report where there were reasonable grounds to suspect transactions were related to a money laundering or terrorist activity financing offense. It also alleged CIBC failed to submit incoming electronic funds transfer reports with the prescribed information.

The penalty is for administrative violations, not criminal offenses, and the amount has been paid in full by the bank and the proceedings closed, Fintrac said.

On Tuesday, the agency said Royal Bank was found to have committed three administrative violations relating to transaction reports, providing information and keeping written policies and procedures up to date.

Fintrac has imposed more than 125 penalties since it received legislative authority to do so in 2008. In the 2023 financial year it issued six notices of violation of non-compliance to businesses for about C$1.1 million.

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 07, 2023 13:44 ET (18:44 GMT)

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