We recently discovered that an authorized signer on one of our business customer’s accounts is a felon and will have to serve several years in jail. Should we notify the account owner or take any other action? Should we pretend we don’t know?

In our view, you should not take any action with respect to your information that the authorized signer is a felon. Generally speaking, federal and state laws do not prevent a felon (even one in prison) from being an authorized signer on a bank account, and we believe it would be prudent for a variety of reasons to refrain from initiating a discussion of the individual’s criminal history and prison sentence with the account owner.