Citigroup whistle-blower asks for share of $400mn penalty

Citigroup headquarters in New York. A Citigroup employee says she provided US regulators with information that led to the bank paying a $400mn fine. Now, she wants a judge to award her a share of the penalty.

A Citigroup Inc employee says she provided US regulators with information that led to the bank paying a $400mn fine. Now, she wants a judge to award her a share of the penalty. Tamika Miller, a Citigroup auditor, said she supplied federal officials with documents and other evidence that were “instrumental” to the bank’s 2020 settlement over risk-management failures, according to documents filed on Monday as part of a federal lawsuit in Manhattan. In seeking a payout from the US government, she’s citing a whistle-blower law that allows corporate tipsters to pocket as much as 30% of a sanction. For Miller, that could mean a $120mn windfall. Blowing the whistle on corporate misdeeds has become lucrative in recent years, with government watchdogs routinely awarding informants millions of dollars for their help with cases. Last year, for example, regulators doled out $200mn to one tipster alone for information about Deutsche Bank AG manipulating interest rates that resulted in the bank paying billions of dollars in fines. Miller sued Citigroup in 2019, accusing the bank of committing fraud and invoking the False Claims Act, which enables whistle-blowers to bring lawsuits against companies on behalf of the federal government and collect a portion of any settlement. Months later, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency - an independent bank regulator - fined Citigroup $400mn for offences similar to the alleged conduct Miller says she originally described as part of her lawsuit. The Justice Department ultimately did not pursue the case. Now, Miller says the OCC fine was an alternative remedy, and that’s why she should be awarded a portion. A spokesperson for Citigroup and the OCC declined to comment on Monday’s filing. In 2020, the OCC alleged Citigroup had persistent problems with some of its internal compliance programmes. “We are disappointed that we have fallen short of our regulators’ expectations, and we are fully committed to thoroughly addressing the issues identified,” Citigroup said in its statement in response to the original consent order, without admitting wrongdoing. Miller began sharing relevant information about Citigroup’s compliance procedures with authorities in 2019, according to the filing. Miller, who is based in Texas, said she has worked in Citigroup’s risk department since 2014 after receiving her undergraduate degree in business from Davenport University, based in Michigan, in 2011, the filing said. According to Miller’s filing, Citigroup lied to regulators about its internal controls and filed fraudulent reports. For years, the bank’s central system that housed all of its audits on outside parties was plagued with conflicts of interests and other problems, Miller alleged. Citigroup staffers minimised issues in audit reports so they appeared to be minor infractions that didn’t need to be flagged to regulators, when they would otherwise have resulted in a failing grade, Miller said. She also accused Citigroup of altering reviews she wrote - internal ones, as well as those that were distributed to third parties, such as regulators - to downplay concerns she raised about the bank’s controls.