New York Times Proof of Publication — In re Vyaire Medical

Source document: reports. Cynthia Adams, TD; document type: criminal-prosecutions.

Full text

620 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10018
nytimes.com
PROOF OF PUBLICATION
I, Tami Bacon, in my capacity as a Principal Clerk of the Publisher of
The New York Times, a daily newspaper of general circulation printed
and published in the City, County, and State of New York, hereby
certify that the advertisement annexed hereto was published in the
editions of The New York Times on the following date or dates, to wit
on.
10/11/2024, NY/NATL, pg B5
Digitally signed
by John McGill
Date: 2024.10.11
12:26:36 -04'00'
October 11, 2024
Case 24-11217-BLS    Doc 620    Filed 10/11/24    Page 1 of 2

N
B5
BUSINESS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2024
LABOR | BANKING
The asset cap, imposed by the
Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency, is considered the indus-
try’s most drastic punishment be-
cause it prevents a bank from
growing. TD Bank, with about
$370 billion in assets, is the first
big bank to face that rare move
since Wells Fargo, which has been
constrained since 2018 for a litany
of misdeeds including opening
sham bank accounts for its
customers without their consent.
TD Bank pleaded guilty to
charges of conspiring to fail to
maintain
an
adequate
anti-
money-laundering program and
failing to file accurate transaction
reports.
Cynthia
Adams,
TD
Bank’s chief legal officer in the
United States, entered the plea on
behalf of the bank’s U.S. subsid-
iary in Federal District Court in
Newark, before Judge Esther
Salas.
Federal prosecutors, in docu-
ments filed in court, said that
some of the bank’s employees had
enabled money laundering by
criminal gangs and that the bank
was slow to detect and address it.
Prosecutors said they had also
charged over two dozen individu-
als, including two bank insiders.
“TD Bank’s persistent prioriti-
zation of growth over controls al-
lowed its employees to break the
law and facilitate the laundering
of hundreds of millions of dollars,”
Michael J. Hsu, the acting comp-
troller of the currency, said in a
statement. “The imposition of an
asset cap will ensure that the bank
focuses on building proper con-
trols commensurate with its risk
profile.”
The joint action included fed-
eral prosecutors in New Jersey
and Washington, the Federal Re-
serve, the Office of the Comptrol-
ler of the Currency and other
Treasury authorities.
“This is a sad day in our history,
for which we are very regretful,”
TD Bank’s chief executive, Bharat
Masrani, said. The bank an-
nounced last month that Mr. Mas-
rani would retire in April.
The chairman of the bank’s
board, Alan MacGibbon, said in a
statement that it would continue
to “take action to address these
failures and hold those responsi-
ble accountable.”
TD Bank Group — Canada’s
second-largest bank, with about
1,100 branches in the United
States — disclosed last year that it
was the subject of a U.S. Justice
Department investigation into its
anti-money-laundering
compli-
ance. In April, the bank reported
that it was also in discussions with
three American banking regula-
tors about penalties for failing to
follow
anti-money-laundering
laws.
At that time, the bank set aside
$450 million in reserve for the
fines it anticipated, but it warned
investors that the final cost could
be higher. In August, the bank put
an additional $2.6 billion in re-
serve for the penalties it anticipat-
ed. To raise that cash, TD Bank
sold 40.5 million shares of Charles
Schwab stock, reducing its owner-
ship stake in the banking and bro-
kerage company to just over 10
percent from 12 percent.
Last year, TD Bank agreed to
pay $1.2 billion to settle claims
arising from a $7 billion Ponzi
scheme involving Stanford Finan-
cial, a bank that collapsed in 2009.
TD Bank was accused of continu-
ing to do business with Stanford
despite obvious red flags about its
operations and the fraudulent cer-
tificates of deposit that Stanford
sold
to
more
than
20,000
customers.
The
swirling
investigations
scuttled TD Bank’s planned acqui-
sition of Memphis-based First Ho-
rizon Bank, a $13.4 billion take-
over that was announced in early
2022 before being abandoned last
year because of problems obtain-
ing regulatory approvals. TD
Bank paid First Horizon a $200
million breakup fee.
TD Bank has spent 500 million
Canadian dollars (about $365 mil-
lion) on improvements to its
money-laundering controls, Mr.
Masrani said in May. Late last
year,
the
bank
hired
Herb
Mazariegos, formerly of the Bank
of Montreal, to run its global anti-
money-laundering program.
TD
Bank’s
U.S.
branches
stretch along the East Coast from
Maine to Florida. It has nearly as
many branches spread across
Canada, where the bank is also
known as Toronto-Dominion. It is
the 10th-largest bank in the
United States, according to Fed-
eral Reserve data.
In settling, TD Bank agreed to
retain an independent monitor to
oversee its anti-money-launder-
ing efforts, and to invest more in
the program overall.
TD Bank Pleads Guilty and Pays $3 Billion
The penalties include a cap on its ability to take on new deposits in the U.S.
OWEN DAVIES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
But if the cases against Amazon
prevail, they could eventually
prompt a restructuring of the
company’s last-mile delivery sys-
tem and open the door to a wave of
union organizing, labor experts
said.
“When it comes to organizing,
success breeds success,” said
Benjamin Sachs, a labor professor
at Harvard Law School.
A Question of Control
At the heart of the labor board
cases is a key question: How
much control does Amazon exert
over those delivering packages?
The e-commerce giant argues
that its role is minimal. Over 3,000
delivery service partners, or
D.S.P.s, determine pay, schedules
and work conditions for drivers,
the company said.
But according to N.L.R.B. find-
ings, the Teamsters and many
drivers say Amazon dictates
nearly every aspect of the job.
Dustin Neskahi has been deliv-
ering packages for Amazon in
Lenexa, Kan., for almost a year
and a half, through Go Go Logis-
tics, a service partner. With
roughly 300 packages to deliver
each day at more than 200 loca-
tions, he said, he sometimes has to
forgo the two 15-minute breaks he
is allowed.
If he fails to drop off all of the
packages in his van by the end of
the day, Amazon penalizes Go Go
Logistics, he said.
“I just feel like I have the pres-
sure to represent what they want
from us,” Mr. Neskahi said. “I’ve
got to be Amazon’s little poster
boy for a delivery driver.”
Once last month, Mr. Neskahi
said, he drove for more than 10
hours without a break and didn’t
finish his deliveries until 9:30 p.m.
Cameras
in
the
Amazon-
branded van monitor his moves —
information sent directly to Ama-
zon, which alerts Go Go Logistics
to any infractions. On that late
night on the road, Mr. Neskahi had
to look away from the dashboard
longer than usual to identify ad-
dresses in the dark. That, he said,
will probably result in a mark-
down on his scorecard.
The monitoring and expecta-
tions to perform come from Ama-
zon, he said. The subcontracted
company is “under a chokehold,”
he added. “They are the messen-
gers, the middlemen.”
Ms. Hards, Amazon’s spokes-
woman, pushed back against the
notion that Amazon penalizes
third-party companies for their
performance. Amazon sets safety,
compliance and quality stand-
ards, she said, and provides re-
sources to help meet them. Cam-
eras in vans flag unsafe behavior
on the road, she said, but D.S.P.s
are responsible for how to re-
spond.
Workers at Go Go Logistics
have not taken steps to unionize.
But Mr. Neskahi said he and a cou-
ple of fellow employees had en-
couraged others to join them in
talking to a Teamsters represent-
ative. A union, he said, could take
up issues of pay and workload
with Amazon directly.
When it ended its contract with
the delivery service in Palmdale
after drivers started to organize,
Amazon said the move was unre-
lated to the union campaign — but
Johnathon Ervin, who owns the
business,
Battle-Tested
Strat-
egies, argued that it was retalia-
tion. (Ms. Hards of Amazon said
the company “does not retaliate
for union organization.”)
Mr. Ervin said he had been
drawn to the Amazon delivery
program because of the allure of
becoming an entrepreneur. He
served as an Amazon ambassador
at one point, talking to prospec-
tive D.S.P. owners.
“But eventually, you realize
over the years that they don’t
want leaders,” Mr. Ervin said.
“They do not want pushback.
They want compliance.”
Mr. Ervin said all the driver
metrics available to him as the
owner of a subcontracted delivery
company came from Amazon,
through the e-commerce giant’s
systems. When Amazon’s system
found an infraction, an Amazon
manager would tell him how to
counsel the driver, he said.
The N.L.R.B. regional director’s
finding that Amazon is a joint em-
ployer of the Palmdale drivers
“confirmed the obvious,” Mr. Er-
vin said. Amazon was his compa-
ny’s only client, and it hasn’t oper-
ated since he lost the contract.
Most recently, drivers at eight
D.S.P.s in New York City signed
authorization cards to unionize
with the Teamsters. Drivers at
four service partners in Skokie,
Ill., have also signed Teamsters
union cards this year.
Emmanuel Trinidad has been
delivering Amazon packages for
just over one year through Cornu-
copia Logistics in the New York
borough of Queens, where hun-
dreds of drivers have signed un-
ion cards. On a Monday morning
in early October, he tapped his
badge at the entrance to Amazon’s
DBK4 plant, donning an Amazon
vest as a steady flow of Prime-
branded vans exited the parking
lot.
If he gets a few stops behind
schedule, Amazon immediately
tells Cornucopia to contact him,
Mr. Trinidad said.
“To me, that tells you I work for
Amazon as well,” he said.
Last month, Mr. Trinidad and
his colleagues staged a demon-
stration to demand that Amazon
recognize their Teamsters union
and negotiate a contract. They got
a raise, but Mr. Trinidad said it
was not enough. His brother is
represented by the Teamsters as a
UPS employee in Massachusetts.
Mr. Trinidad wants the same, in
the hopes of securing better bene-
fits and clear workload guidelines.
Some days, he said, he has to de-
liver 350 packages at over 100 lo-
cations.
“We just need a more stable
work environment,” he said.
A Legal Battle Ahead
The fight in Palmdale offers a
peek at the challenges ahead.
For one, under U.S. labor law,
the Teamsters have to organize
drivers location by location at the
thousands of D.S.P.s, said Susan
Schurman, a labor professor at
Rutgers University. The same sit-
uation has posed hurdles for union
organizing at companies like Star-
bucks.
“That’s a massive challenge to
any union, even one as big as the
Teamsters,” Ms. Schurman said.
And even after drivers vote to
unionize, Amazon could stretch
out the bargaining process; work-
ers at a Staten Island Amazon
warehouse who voted to unionize
more than two years ago still don’t
have a contract.
Unions have to persuade driv-
ers to get on board, too. While
there is momentum for unioniza-
tion at Amazon facilities like the
one in Queens, some drivers, es-
pecially those who are new to the
job, aren’t willing to throw their
full support behind the Teamsters’
campaign just yet.
Dia Ortiz, two weeks into her
job as a driver based at Amazon’s
center in Queens, said she was
earning more than she did as a
manager at Old Navy. A $1.50-an-
hour raise, which took effect
around the time the union cam-
paign went public, was enough to
keep her from signing a union
card, she said.
Despite the hurdles, the N.L-
.R.B.’s early findings could spur
more union organizing. They have
the potential to eventually force
Amazon to the bargaining table as
the “party that has the power to
make things better,” Mr. Sachs of
Harvard Law School said.
Conditions for drivers, as they
stand, have pushed Malachi Allen
away from the job. Mr. Allen
started working for a Sacramento
delivery service called ONCI in
early 2023, with the allure of
$23.50 an hour for solo work on
the road. But the scrutiny of his
moves quickly soured him on the
job.
The last straw came on Aug. 19.
Mr. Allen, on his 45-minute drive
to deliver packages in Fairfield,
Calif., took one more bathroom
stop than usual: first at a truck
stop by the freeway on-ramp, and
then at a gas station. Usually, Mr.
Allen would have urinated in a
bottle to avoid falling behind on
his route. But on that day, he didn’t
have a bottle.
His dispatcher took note of the
unplanned stop, sent him a
screenshot of his location and de-
manded an explanation, accord-
ing to text message exchanges.
Mr. Allen said he would have
supported a union to push Ama-
zon to improve conditions. But he
never discussed it with his co-
workers, fearing that Amazon
could stop working with his com-
pany.
He decided to quit in late Au-
gust.
“I got so fed up with Amazon,”
Mr. Allen said. “It’s probably just
best, instead of going to another
D.S.P., to start something fresh.”
Johnathon Ervin, a business owner, accuses Amazon of canceling a contract in retaliation for union organizing.
KYLE GRILLOT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Drivers as Employees at Amazon?
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

File and source

File

gov.uscourts.deb.193283.620.0.pdf

Size

5,161,029 bytes

SHA-256

b31995676c7d566ab9a5782327325c79370f226be71c5a5b22a371228bf4ce71

Our copy

gov.uscourts.deb.193283.620.0.pdf

Original

PACER (login required)