US authorities ban another banker over 1MDB

The ex-Goldman Sachs senior executive failed to ‘escalate Jho Low’s involvement in the bond offerings’

USA

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The main governing body of the US Federal Reserve System has permanently barred former Goldman Sachs senior executive Andrea Vella from the banking industry.

The Federal Reserve Board said this was due to his role in Goldman’s financing of the “defrauded” Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Goldman arranged bond offerings in 2012 and 2013 for the state-owned development and investment company 1MDB.

The consent order states that Vella “failed to escalate Jho Low’s involvement in the bond offerings”.

Low and two former Goldman employees, Tim Leissner and Roger Ng, have been criminally charged by the US Department of Justice for “participating in a scheme to divert proceeds of the bond offerings from 1MDB for their personal benefit and bribing certain government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi”.

In March 2019, the Federal Reserve Board permanently “prohibited” Leissner from banking and fined him $1.42m (£1.1m, €1.29m) for his role in the scheme to divert bond proceeds.

Ng is currently banned from banking.

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