A former interim bank chief executive, and director, has been prohibited from future participation in the banking industry and fined $75,000, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday.
The said Anthony R. Gressak III is a former director and former interim CEO of Nano Financial Holdings, Inc. and Nano Banc, both of Irvine, Calif. In the former role, the Fed said, Gressak violated a prior written agreement between the firm and the Federal Reserve.
In January 2022, the Fed ordered the companies to hire chief executive and financial officers and to build up a “sufficient number of board members,” which the bank was without. The Fed said then that the hirings “are vital to the safe and sound operations of the Bank” considering numerous remedial requirements of a written agreement signed by the firms in 2021.
That agreement required the bank to retain an independent third party to assess the effectiveness of the Bank’s corporate governance, board and management structures, and staffing needs.
The state regulator had also acted, the Fed noted. In December 2021, the California Department of Financial Institutions issued a cease-and-desist order that required the board of directors of the bank to increase the number of directors in accordance with state law, the Fed said.
The Fed order also focused on insider trading. The bank was required to engage an independent third party acceptable to the Fed district bank to “identify and conduct a review of all extensions of credit between insiders and the Bank (the ‘Insider Transaction Review’) that have occurred within the two-year period immediately prior to the effective date of this Order, or for additional time periods as directed by the Reserve Bank, including but not limited to any loan or personal expense paid to an insider through a corporate credit card, and to prepare a written report detailing the independent third party’s findings (the ‘Insider Transaction Review Report’).”
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