Those of us auditors outside the huge firms may not have to deal directly with the impact of banks engaging in money laundering, yet we can still learn by watching. Here’s the background in one sentence – – Many of the largest banks were systematically ignoring U.S. laws against sending money into certain countries.
On my other blog, Nonprofit Update, I have several posts discussing the mess.
Of interest to me as an auditor is the apparently intentional violation of laws and how the corporate tone at the top could have prevented the fiasco.
A couple of questions come to mind:
- How can a bank set up a structured, named program to violate U.S. laws?
- How could an auditor find that?
- Would there be hints visible to an auditor of this corporate culture?
I think we can also look at the money laundering cases for lessons in ethics.
Here’s my posts: