22+ terminations, one pattern: former workers claim regulatory panic drove TD Bank's decisions
When federal regulators came down hard on TD Bank for money laundering failures last October, the bank moved fast to show it was serious about compliance. What followed, according to a lawsuit filed this week, was a targeted campaign against Chinese and Chinese-American employees that went far beyond anything resembling objective investigation.
The case, filed November 19 in federal court in Manhattan, centers on how HR investigations can veer into discrimination when conducted under regulatory pressure. Five named plaintiffs are suing on behalf of a class they say includes more than 22 workers terminated from the bank's New York City Chinatown branches between 2022 and now.
The narrative here carries a particular sting. The bank had actively recruited Chinese-speaking employees to those branches to build trust with Chinese customers. Executives encouraged these employees to develop relationships with the community and bank with TD to boost credibility. Then, when the DOJ launched an investigation into how criminal networks were using TD branches to launder money, those same employees became targets.
On October 10, 2024, TD Bank had pled guilty to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and agreed to pay 1.8 billion dollars in penalties. The money-laundering scheme itself involved networks using Chinese intermediaries. But according to the allegations now in court, investigators...
As we await more details about CBP’s latest murder in Minneapolis, I wanted to point to an attempt by DOJ to get a writ of mandamus because Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko denied five of eight arres...