[quote]HSBC Holdingssaid Wednesday it named James Comey, Jr. to its board as of March 4 as it continues to respond to the money laundering scandal that has engulfed the bank since last summer. Comey, a former deputy attorney general, is a senior research scholar at Columbia University Law School. During his time at the Justice Department, he was responsible for supervising the department’s operations, and he chaired President George W. Bush’s corporate fraud task force. Prior to that, he was a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, supervising the prosecution of executives on fraud charges, and he created a specialized unit to prosecute international drug cartels. He served from 2005 to 2010 as general counsel of Lockheed Martin, and more recently was general counsel of Bridgewater Associates LP. Comey will join the Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee, a panel HSBC’s board established Wednesday. Among its other members, the bank said, are Stuart Gulliver, HSBC’s chief executive; Mark Moses, chief risk officer; Stuart Levey, chief legal officer; and Bob Werner, head of financial crime compliance. “The caliber, status and experience of the individuals reinforce once more how seriously we are taking this,” Gulliver said in a statement. The committee will provide guidance, oversight and policy advice over HSBC’s internal controls designed to focus where the bank may become exposed to financial crime or abuse, HSBC said. Robert Jackson Jr., an associate professor at Columbia Law School who is co-director of the Millstein Center, said large financial institutions have recently been establishing committees of their boards to address issues they face, such as risk. Some create them on an ad hoc basis, while others standardize the panels, he said. “These committees, historically, were used for limited circumstances such as mergers and acquisitions or when the company is subject to significant litigation,” Jackson said. “But today, they’re increasingly a tool for ensuring a major corporate governance issue is directly overseen by the board.” The committee’s formation comes about six weeks after HSBC reached a record $1.9 billion settlement with U.S. authorities over allegations it was complicit in money laundering by drug cartels and other entities blacklisted from the U.S. financial system. HSBC apologized to a U.S. Senate subcommittee that found its units across the globe were being used by money launderers and potential terrorist financiers. Comey’s appointment, along with the creation of the committee, is the latest in a series of personnel moves HSBC made in the wake of the investigations.[/quote] http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2013/01/30/hsbc-names-james-comey-to-the-board/