An increase in maximum civil money penalties (CMPs), including of up to more than $2 million in the top tier, up from about $1.9 million – will be published by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) as early as Thursday. The increases are effective as of Jan. 15.
The increase is mandated by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015. The FDIC said the adjusted maximum amounts of civil money penalties are applicable to penalties assessed after Jan. 15 for conduct occurring on or after Nov. 2, 2015.
The delay in the publication date is attributable to the 35-day partial federal government shutdown, which ended Saturday.
“On December 14, 2018, the OMB [White House Office of Management and Budget] issued guidance to affected agencies on implementing the required annual adjustment, which guidance included the relevant inflation multiplier,” the agency’s notice reads. “The FDIC has applied that multiplier to the maximum CMPs allowable in 2018 for FDIC-supervised institutions to calculate the maximum amount of CMPs that may be assessed by the FDIC in 2019.
“There were no new statutory CMPs administered by the FDIC during 2018,” the notice adds.
The notice includes a chart providing the inflation-adjusted maximum CMP amounts for use after Jan. 15, the effective date of the adjustments.