ORAL ARGUMENT SET FOR SECOND CIRCUIT APPEAL OF ORDER RELEASING HSBC MONITOR'S REPORT

Back in September, we noted, in our article entitled  HSBC Delays Prompt Resolution of its Appeal of Judge's Order to release Monitor's Report, that HSBC appeared to be intentionally delaying the progress of its Second Circuit appeal of a District Judge's order, releasing the restricted report of the Independent Report of the court-appointed Monitor. HSBC's argument, that public release of the report might affect its employees cooperation, failed, and the Court ordered its release; it is believed that the  report exposes what has been called a dysfunctional AML/CFT program, still not yet sufficiently improved to meet minimum banking best practices standards, notwithstanding that time has elapsed since the Monitor came on board.

Finally, though, the Court has scheduled Oral Argument for March 1, 2017. Some observers have theorized that, since the 2nd Circuit decision, due to delays they blame squarely upon HSBC, that it will be more than a year after the appeal was filed, when a decision is finally handed down. HSBC, if it loses the appeal, can then argue that its AML program is much improved, from the now-dated report, in the manner of damage control.

Compliance officers universally want to see an unredacted version of the report; the LinkedIn article "Why is this Bank still in Business ?" pretty much sums up their opinion of the global bank's successive problems with money laundering. We all hope to see that report soon.