A securities class action has been filed against Bank of America Corporation (BAC) on behalf of all persons and entities that purchased or otherwise acquired Bank of America common stock between August 1, 2025 through October 13, 2026. This case has been filed in the USDC – SDNY.
Bank of America is a multinational bank holding company that conducts most of its banking business through its wholly owned subsidiary, Bank of America, N.A. (“BANA”). On December 23, 2024, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), an agency of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, issued a cease-and-desist order against BANA requiring comprehensive corrective actions to address deficiencies in its Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering (“BSA/AML”) and sanctions compliance programs (the “2024 Consent Order”). During the Class Period, the Company represented that the 2024 Consent Order related to only “certain aspects” of its compliance programs, that it had “already completed significant steps” to satisfy the order’s requirements, and that the compliance issues would not have a “material adverse financial impact” on the Company.
The Action alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Defendants knew or recklessly disregarded, but failed to disclose, that: (i) systemic weaknesses in BANA’s BSA/AML program caused it to fail to properly monitor trillions of dollars in transactions and to miss, delay, or file inaccurate or incomplete suspicious activity reports involving billions of dollars in suspicious activity; (ii) internal reports had documented BANA’s BSA/AML deficiencies for years, yet BANA had not adequately remedied them after the 2024 Consent Order; (iii) BANA also had deficiencies in its sanctions compliance program and processed transactions later identified as apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs; and (iv) fixing these deficiencies required significant additional compliance resources and exposed BANA to substantial penalties and costs. These facts rendered Defendants’ statements about the scope of BANA’s compliance failures, its progress under the 2024 Consent Order, and the expected costs and penalties materially false and misleading.
The truth began to emerge after the market closed on October 13, 2026, when the U.S. Department of Treasury announced coordinated enforcement actions against BANA resulting in more than $1.21 billion in penalties and settlements. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) assessed a $1.2 billion penalty, including credit for a $750 million penalty imposed by the OCC, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) separately announced an $11.6 million settlement. In its order, FinCEN stated that BANA admitted that it willfully violated the BSA and missed or delayed detecting and reporting more than $5 billion in suspicious activity. The OCC further found that, despite the 2024 Consent Order, BANA had failed to complete significant corrective steps and its BSA/AML program remained deficient.
The truth continued to emerge the following morning, October 14, 2026, when Bank of America reported its third quarter 2026 results, showing that the regulatory settlement charge reduced diluted earnings per share by $0.17. Following the enforcement announcements and quarterly results, Bank of America’s stock price fell to an intraday low of $49.26 on October 14, 2026, before closing at $51.39, down 4.8% from the previous day’s closing price of $53.96.