American Savings Bank in Honolulu has settled a lawsuit with its former security chief, who had claimed that the thrift covered up a branch employee's financial abuse of an elderly customer.
The $6.8 billion-asset unit of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. paid what a published report called a "substantial" amount to settle the suit with Bert Corniel, who had asked for damages under the Whistleblower Protection Act. News of the May 21 settlement was reported May 25 in the Pacific Business News.
Mr. Corniel's suit, filed last August, claimed that he had filed a suspicious activity report with law enforcement officials and regulators in 2005, after discovering that a branch manager had diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a former customer, Ada Lim. Mr. Corniel claimed his supervisor told him to file an amended report that did not characterize the employee's actions as fraudulent. He claimed he refused and was demoted and forced to quit last June.
American Savings settled a separate suit with Ms. Kim last year.
