Bank of England slaps rare personal fines on Japanese bankers for failing to disclose ban

THE BANK of England has fined a Japanese banker for not disclosing that he was about to be banned from activities in the US.

Akira Kamiya, former chair of Mitsubishi UFJ Securities’ (MUFG) EMEA division, was charged £22,700 by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) for not disclosing he was personally investigated when the bank was fined $315m (£240m) in New York.

The PRA also hit Takami Onodera, a non-executive director of MUFG at the time, with a £14,945 penalty.

New York’s Department of Financial Services (DFS) fined an MUFG subsidiary for putting pressure on advisers Price-waterhouseCoopers to water-down a report into business conducted with sanctioned countries.

The PRA said it did not find out Kamiya had been investigated until the DFS order was published, preventing it considering “whether the DFS matter had, or could have had, an impact on Kamiya’s fitness and propriety.”

“If such individuals are not fit and proper, there is a risk that their influence will have a negative impact on the firm and, depending on the size of the firm in question, financial stability more generally,” it added.

The personal fines come over a year after PRA imposed an £8.9m fine on MUS, and £17.9m on its subsidiary, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTMU).

PRA chief executive Sam Woods said: “It is vital that firms and individuals are completely open and cooperative with the regulator, and that they disclose appropriately any information of which the PRA would reasonably expect notice.

“We are today imposing financial penalties on Mr Kamiya and Mr Onodera for their failure to meet this disclosure standard, in addition to the financial penalties already imposed on the firm.”

The pair are thought to be only the fifth and sixth people to be personally fined by the PRA since its inception in 2013.

“Today’s announcement relates to historic breaches, and the roles played by individuals," said a spokesperson for MUFG bank, which now contains BTMU. "MUFG has learned from this incident and is fully committed to being open to regulators in every jurisdiction in which we operate.”