Information & Ethics committee  The two regimes are different. FINTRAC cannot penalize for money laundering. That's the first thing.

Information & Ethics committee  In the American regime, the institution may be named and the amount may be named. We don't know if that is the final result. What we know is that this is what is being announced. Are there then negotiations in terms of what the final amount of money will be? We don't know.

Information & Ethics committee  It was under 20.

Information & Ethics committee  The American regime is not our regime. When they penalize for hundreds of millions of dollars, they penalize for money laundering, not for not complying with institutions' obligations to report. They pay a fine for acting criminally.

Information & Ethics committee  The first thing we need to do, and we've done, is to establish whether there are technical means of confirming that the information came from FINTRAC. We've been told that the information came from FINTRAC. I cannot assume that this is necessarily the case. So before going after—

Information & Ethics committee  No, it's not from part of the investigation. The fact that the leak came from FINTRAC was provided to us by somebody from the outside who said, “I know the name of the bank, and it was confirmed to me by a member of FINTRAC.” In all conscience, I cannot assume that, so I have to proceed cautiously to make sure we don't accuse people before having all the facts.

Information & Ethics committee  The first thing, Mr. Chair, is that we were taken to court long before we imposed the penalty on Manulife. The situation with Manulife and the fact that we did not name the organization has not necessarily incited other entities to take us to court. We were taken to court long before that.

Information & Ethics committee  The regulations are what they are for the time being. We're working with the Department of Finance right now on whether there is a best way to manage the compliance regime, including the penalty program. One of the issues we have faced is basically that there were two cases—two court decisions—that are forcing FINTRAC to review its compliance program.

Information & Ethics committee  The two regimes are similar, but they're not the same. The Americans do penalize for money laundering. We do not penalize for money laundering. We penalize for non-compliance with the legislation. If we were to see, through an examination, facts that are so egregious, we have the capacity to disclose to the RCMP.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, we are blind because, historically, we have seen organizations with different means going to court in response to penalties. The issue is not as much whether entities have the financial capacity to go to court. The issue is that the court may decide to seal the proceeding and, therefore, the deterrent effect or the transparency effect is nullified by the court process.

Information & Ethics committee  The decision that an entity may take to go to court or not to go to court is its own choice. They may take that decision for several reasons, including, for instance, because they think they're going to win on the disagreement they have with us on the violations. Their choice is based on their own analysis of their chance of success through a court proceeding.

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chairman, I'm not too sure what the question is. I think it wouldn't be appropriate to go back to try to re-decide what I would do under different circumstances.

Information & Ethics committee  When we issue our notice of decision to the institutions, the institutions may go to court, and then we have to act according to the position of the court at that moment. Alternatively, they may say that they want to go to court, and until the process is completed and exhausted, we do not name and do not penalize the institution, so there's a timing issue.

Information & Ethics committee  We basically look at their obligations to report to us. Under the legislation, they have the obligation to report large cash transactions of more than $10,000. They have the obligation to report international electronic transfers. They have the obligation to report suspicious transaction reports.

Information & Ethics committee  They were just asking, “Is it this one, this one, or this one?” So, obviously somebody either had guessed or got information from somewhere as to who the penalized entity was. Despite the fact that it was out there, and despite the fact that we had a confidential agreement with Manulife, we could not confirm whether it was Manulife or any other entity for that matter.