US authorities have fined Goldman Sachs $50 million after an employee of the Wall Street firm's schemed to steal confidential regulatory information for the purposes of servicing the needs of a customer.

The unnamed man also improperly shared that information with other Goldman Sachs employees in breach of New York Banking Law §36(10). Anthony Albanese, the acting Superintendent of Financial Services who has just announced his decision to move on, blamed the misconduct on weak controls and policies that governed its "employee conflicts screening" and its use of confidential regulatory information.

Goldman Sachs also admits that its managers failed to supervise its employee effectively enough to prevent the theft of information from occurring and failed to have adequate policies and procedures relating to post-employment restrictions for former government employees. Goldman says that it will undertake a series of reforms to help ensure compliance with what the NYDFS calls "post-government-employment revolving door restrictions" and prevent the improper use of confidential regulatory information.

The man in question was a bank 'examiner' at the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York, aka the New York Fed, where he had tried to falsify documents and was sacked. In July last year he became an associate in the financial institutions group of the investment banking division.

In May 2014 the New York Fed Ethics Office gave him a "Notice of Post-Employment Restriction," which he completed and signed with respect to his supervisory work for Goldman. It prohibited him "from knowingly accepting compensation as an employee, officer, director, or consultant from [the Regulated Entity]" until February 1, 2015. This did not stop Goldman from putting him on 'regulated entity' duty forthwith. He then obtained about 35 documents, on approximately 20 occasions, from a former co-worker at the New York Fed. The NYDFS says in a press release, rather alarmingly, that this person has been 'terminated.'