Deutsche Bank fined $4M over delayed reporting of suspicious activity

A unit of Deutsche Bank AG agreed to pay $4 million to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it failed to investigate suspicious activity in a timely manner, including two cases where it waited more than two years to file reports.

Between April 2019 and March 2024, it took Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. an unreasonable amount of time to complete so-called Suspicious Activity Reports after law enforcement or regulators asked the firm to conduct investigations, the SEC said Friday.

The firm, which agreed to pay the fine without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, said in a statement that it takes its legal and regulatory obligations seriously. 

“As noted in the settlement, we have cooperated with the SEC in the investigation and have undertaken remedial actions prior to today’s settlement,” Deutsche Bank spokesperson Dylan Riddle said in a statement.

Broker-dealers are required by the Bank Secrecy Act and other regulations to file reports when they suspect illegal activity. Filing timely reports is “of paramount importance,” Sheldon Pollock, associate director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office, said in a statement.  

In one case, the firm filed a report identifying 68 suspicious transactions totaling almost $2 billion after a regulator requested the investigation more than two years earlier, according to the SEC’s cease-and-desist order.

“Even the best information collected from SARs is of limited use if it’s stale by the time it’s provided to law enforcement,” Pollock said in the statement.