RCBC lawyers say bank a ‘victim’ of money laundering scam

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) at Jupiter Street, Makati. INQUIRER PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

RIZAL Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) is as much—and possibly even more—a “victim” of the $81-million money laundering caper as the country from which the funds were stolen, lawyers of the Yuchengco-family controlled bank said over the weekend.

In a statement sent to the Inquirer, RCBC’s external counsel said the country’s fifth largest financial institution could validly invoke the defense that it exercised due diligence in the supervision of a rogue employee and “did not contribute to the wrongdoing.”

“In fact, based on emerging details, it seems very much like RCBC is as much, if not more, a victim of these individuals and their nefarious plans, as the Bangladesh central bank,” Villaraza & Angangco partner Bienvenido Somera Jr. said.

The law firm has been tasked with representing the officers and employees of the bank who may be charged with offenses in relation to what authorities have said is the biggest case of money laundering ever to have been uncovered in the country.

Its statement came in reaction to an earlier Inquirer column by Joel Butuyan, which criticized the bank for laying the blame for the scheme on its Jupiter Street branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito, noting that the so-called “rogue employee defense” has long been abandoned in first world countries and that the blame should fall on the bank instead.

“Mr. Butuyan is plainly wrong,” Somera said. “The truth is there is no universal and absolute abandonment of the rogue employee defense.”

The Villaraza lawyer cited a 2012 case in the United States where an employee of investment bank Morgan Stanley was charged with bribery and securities fraud, while the institution escaped prosecution because it proved that it had systems in place to prevent such fraud from being carried out.

Another case in 2014 involved Bechtel Power Corp. where an executive was charged with defrauding the firm and laundering the proceeds of his activities, while the firm again escaped prosecution after showing that it had sufficient controls in place.

“The implication of this is simple—notwithstanding all reasonable efforts of an employer to put in place guidelines, policies and rules to ensure proper conduct among its employees, a rogue employee, an employee with a uniquely determined criminal mind and intent, will always find a way to violate the rules for personal gain,” he said.

Somera added that “it is not just to punish an entire law abiding company and its shareholders for the wrongdoing of one (or a few) employees, who clearly acted on their own.”