Incident replay · what actually happened
Citibank / Revlon
Date
10 August 2020
Loss
$900M
In re Citibank August 11, 2020 Wire Transfers (S.D.N.Y. 2021) 520 F. Supp. 3d 390
Citibank N.A. v. Brigade Capital Mgmt., 2d Cir. 2022 (reversed)
Federal Reserve OCC Consent Order (Oct 2020)
T
0.0s / 14.0s
pivot @ 5.5s
verifier REFUTES at T = 5.5sactual deploy afternoon, 10 Aug
Actual reality
no instrumentation- DEPLOYafternoon, 10 Aug
Operator initiates Revlon principal-+-interest payment via Citi's Flexcube workflow
- SYMPTOM—
Default UI checkbox state routes principal portion via 'wash-account' override; reviewer accepts default
- WIREwire submitted
Wire executes for full principal-plus-interest: $893,944,008 instead of the $7.8M interest-only amount intended
- ALARM12 Aug 2020
Citi notices error; demands return. ~$385M voluntarily returned by lenders
- LOSS16 Feb 2021
S.D.N.Y. (Furman J.) holds discharge-for-value applies; Citi loses ~$500M
- LOSS8 Sep 2022
2d Circuit reverses; recovery proceeds. Net loss + costs $900M+; OCC fines Citi $400M for related controls failures
Loading counterfactual timeline…
The customer rule that would have caught it
approver_id != requestor_id
Three words. $900M.