FCA v National Westminster Bank

Allegations & issues

The FCA prosecuted failures to conduct ongoing, risk-sensitive and enhanced monitoring of the bank’s relationship with Fowler Oldfield between 2012 and 2016. The three counts concerned monitoring duties under regulations 8 and 14, with criminal liability under regulation 45. [1, §2; 2, §§1–2, 9–10]

Key rulings & findings

NatWest admitted the three monitoring offences on an agreed statement of facts. The sentencing judge used those admitted facts to assess culpability, harm and the appropriate penalty. This was a guilty-plea sentencing, not a contested trial of the underlying laundering activity. [1, §§1, 4, 85–111; 2, introduction]

Admissions

The bank pleaded guilty at its first appearance on 7 October 2021. Its agreed statement of facts accepted specified shortcomings in manual reviews, alert investigations, customer risk-rating and automated monitoring. [1, §§1, 128; 2, §§9–20]

Disposition

On 13 December 2021 the Crown Court sentenced NatWest on the lead count, taking the other two offences into account without separate fines for them. [1, §§84, 129, 132–134]

Penalties, damages & redress

The court imposed a £264,772,619.95 fine, £460,047.04 confiscation order and £4,297,466.27 in FCA costs. The fine reflected a one-third reduction for early guilty pleas; the other two counts carried no separate penalty. [1, §§127–134]

Restrictions & obligations

The sentencing remarks record financial orders against the bank. This entry does not infer any individual employment or professional restriction from those orders. [1, §§132–134]

What the bank admitted

When NatWest accepted Fowler Oldfield as a customer, it expected the business would not deposit cash with the bank. Over the relationship, about £365 million was deposited, including about £264 million in cash. Those deposit figures describe account activity, not money the bank was found to have laundered or retained. [2, §§3–5]

The agreed facts identify several monitoring weaknesses. Some cash deposits were classified by the automated system as cheques, so cash-specific rules did not apply. Staff alerts and transaction-monitoring alerts were investigated inadequately, and the customer was not consistently treated as high risk. [2, §§14–20]

How the court reached the sentence

The judge sentenced on the lead ongoing-monitoring offence while accounting for all three admitted offences. She considered the funds deposited during the charged period when assessing harm, but separately identified the bank’s gain for confiscation. [1, §§84–92]

The court calculated a £397,156,944.14 fine before the reduction for early guilty pleas and imposed £264,772,619.95 after that reduction. It also ordered confiscation of £460,047.04 and payment of the FCA’s £4,297,466.27 costs. [1, §§127–134]

The limit of the outcome

This was the first criminal conviction of a bank under the 2007 Money Laundering Regulations. The offences were failures in monitoring obligations. The case should not be described as a conviction of NatWest for laundering the customer’s money. [1, §§1–3; 3]

The agreed statement discusses a separate police investigation into Fowler Oldfield. Its account of other people’s pleas and charges was the position reported at the time of NatWest’s sentencing; it is not an outcome finding for those separate proceedings. [2, §§5–7]

THE UNDERLYING RECORD

Primary sources

Read the full documents for their precise wording and context. Regulator summaries are identified separately from court records.