Willis hit by £7m FSA fine
Willis has been hit by a £6.985 million fine from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for poor anti-bribery and corruption systems and controls.
The fine is the biggest imposed to date by the FSA in relation to financial crime systems and controls.
According to the regulator, between January 2005 and December 2009, Willis made payments to overseas third parties who assisted it in winning and retaining business from overseas clients, particularly in high risk jurisdictions.
These payments totalled £27 million and the FSA’s found that, up until August 2008, the firm failed to:
Ensure that it established and recorded an adequate commercial rationale to support its payments to overseas third parties.
Ensure that adequate due diligence was carried out on overseas third parties to evaluate the risk involved in doing business with them.
Adequately review its relationships on a regular basis to confirm whether it was still necessary and appropriate for Willis to continue with the relationship.
In addition, between January 2005 and May 2009, the broker failed to adequately monitor its staff to ensure that each time it engaged an overseas third party, an adequate commercial rationale had been recorded and that sufficient due diligence had been carried out.
During the investigation a number of suspicious payments, totalling $227,000, were identified in respect of business carried out in Egypt and Russia and have since been reported to the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Having cooperated with the FSA, Willis qualified for a 30% discount, without which the fine would have been £9.85 million.
Category: Financial Services Authority News, Insurance News, Willis News
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