The news: Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank, which could potentially pay billions of dollars in fines for its alleged involvement in a Ponzi scheme, now also faces accusations of destroying incriminating evidence, per American Banker.
More on this: The US arm of Canadian-based BMO Financial is scheduled to go to court in October regarding its alleged involvement and facilitation of a Ponzi scheme between 1994 and 2008. This week, it lost a pretrial ruling in which a judge found the bank guilty of destroying evidence that it knew would be harmful to its defense.
- The Ponzi scheme occurred via an account at National City Bank, which was later acquired by Marshall & Ilsley Bank in 2001, and later by BMO Harris in 2011. The case states that BMO Harris’s predecessors failed to report the suspicious transactions, thus facilitating the scheme.
- The ruling said that in 2005, the bank intentionally deleted dozens of emails containing digital information pertaining to the case.
- The judge has urged the two sides to reach an agreement before the trial. But if the case goes to court, the jury will be allowed to use the information to draw conclusions about the bank.
BMO Harris has said it disagrees with the ruling and will continue to defend itself throughout litigation. If the bank loses the trial, it faces up to $1.9 billion in fines.
Bad timing: The timing of the ruling is unfortunate for BMO Harris, as it’s currently working toward approval of its acquisition of San…
