LONDON — Standard Chartered, a bank that is based in London and has extensive activities in Asia, said on Tuesday that it was facing an inquiry by regulators into its underwriting of a stock sale in Hong Kong.
The lender’s disclosure — the latest in a series of regulatory issues it has faced worldwide in recent years — comes after UBS said last week that it had been notified that the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong planned to take action against the bank and some of its employees over UBS’s role as a sponsor on certain initial public offerings.
The Swiss bank said it could face fines or a “suspension of UBS’s ability to provide corporate finance advisory services in Hong Kong for a period of time.”
In the case of Standard Chartered, the Hong Kong regulator planned to take action over its role as a joint sponsor of an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2009.