For those of us who crave closure to the stories that make up our lives, here’s one regarding the Well Fargo debacle of 2016 (starting here, last thread entry here):
Wells Fargo, the nation’s fourth-largest bank, agreed Friday to pay a $3 billion fine to settle a civil lawsuit and resolve a criminal prosecution filed by the Justice Department over its fake account scandal. …
None of the money to be paid to the government under this settlement will go to compensate customers. But officials said Wells Fargo has separately made efforts to compensate victims for potential losses — such as fees they might have been charged or harm to their credit ratings, if any.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said $500 million of the settlement would be used to compensate investors who responded to the bank’s promotion of its “cross-sell” strategy — selling more products and services to existing customers. …
The agreement was reached with the bank itself, not with any individuals responsible for the fraud. But last month, the bank’s former chief executive, John Stumpf, was fined $17.5 million by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for his role in the scandal. Other former bank executives were hit with smaller fines. [NBC News]
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised this was released on Friday, the black hole of the news cycle.
Will Wells Fargo learn any lessons from it? Short term, sure. Long term? I lose more and more faith in the long term institutional memory of corporate entities as the drive for profit causes those concerns, barnacles on the idol of money, to be stripped away as useless.
