In December 2018, the bank notified the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it had erased more than 2.77 million audio files, including recordings of traders sought a year earlier by the agency. Citigroup, which didn’t admit or deny the regulator’s findings, had assured CFTC enforcement attorneys they had the recordings in question.
“Registrants have obligations to diligently supervise all aspects of their business related to their duties, including all systems used to comply with CFTC record keeping requirements, document requests, and subpoenas,”
Citigroup was aware of the audio-preservation issue as early as 2014, when an employee wrote a memo to senior management explaining the problem was a “ticking time bomb” that could lead to the automatic deletion of audio recordings, according to the CFTC. Despite that warning, the bank didn’t take any steps to improve the system and files were ultimately deleted.
“We are pleased to have the matter resolved,” said Citigroup spokeswoman
The CFTC didn’t disclose in its statement why it sought recordings of the traders or how that investigation might have been resolved.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Gregory Mott
© 2020 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
To read more articles log in.
Learn more about a Bloomberg Law subscription.