Wells Fargo’s Duke quits before turn in Washington hot seat

Wells Fargo & Co. Chair Betsy Duke resigned from the company’s board ahead of a dramatic congressional hearing set for this week, succumbing to the same political pressures that have claimed multiple former leaders of the bank.

The lender said Monday that board member Charles Noski will replace Duke as chair. Duke faced a growing chorus of calls for her departure after Democrats atop the House Financial Services Committee issued a scathing report last week on the bank’s response to a series of consumer scandals.

Duke and board member James Quigley, whose resignation was also announced Monday, are set to appear before for a hearing Wednesday that the committee said will examine “the role of the board of directors in the bank’s egregious pattern of consumer abuses.” Wells Fargo didn’t say whether the hearing will go forward as planned.

“Since we were made aware of the egregious harms suffered by Wells Fargo’s customers, we were and remain fiercely determined to do right by them and to strengthen the bank’s culture and controls,” Duke and Quigley said in a statement. “We believe that our decision will facilitate the bank’s and the new CEO’s ability to turn the page and avoid distraction that could impede the bank’s future progress.”

Wells Fargo shares slumped 8.6% at 10:01 a.m. in New York amid a marketwide sell-off that sent the S&P 500 down 5.9%.

Wells Fargo leaders have been in Washington’s crosshairs following a series of scandals that began with the 2016 revelation that bank employees opened millions of potentially fake accounts to meet sales goals. The company has faced unprecedented political and regulatory fallout in the years since, including repeated hearings, record fines for former executives and a growth cap put in place by the Federal Reserve.