The Sanctions Commission of the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) announced Thursday that it had condemned the bank RBC Investor Services Bank France (RBCBF) to a fine of 500,000 euros for “breaches of its professional obligations”.
This fine, required by the AMF Board last June, is accompanied by a warning for inadequate exercise of depositary control and irregular and faulty monitoring of certain cash flows, the institution said in a press release.
The French entity of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is a credit institution which at the time of the alleged events, in 2018, offered a depositary service for investors, in particular undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) and funds. alternative investment funds (AIF).
It thus played an intermediary role between these investors and other bodies, to implement and monitor the regularity of operations, such as asset swaps or loans.
In 2019, the AMF carried out an audit of the credit institution and identified 14 problematic flows.
The Commission considered that for all of these 14 flows, the company in question had not collected sufficiently precise and convincing documents to comply with (its) obligations, concluded the Sanctions Committee.
During its hearing, RBC rejected these grievances.
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With particular regard to five of these flows, which corresponded to current account advances paid by one of the AIFs to a beneficiary company, the Commission also considered that RBC ISBF had failed in its obligation to ensure that the fund concerned actually benefited of at least 5% of the capital of this company, adds the commission in its decision.
This is only the third time that the Sanctions Commission has ruled on the activity of custodian companies.
In 2013, it sentenced Societe Generale to the same fine, sanctioning shortcomings in an audit procedure for its asset management activities.