LONDON-- Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC has lost four of its top legal and compliance staff, as the state-controlled bank braces for a series of expected fines over past misconduct.

Chris Campbell, RBS's group general counsel, retired from the bank last month, an RBS spokesman said.

Carolina Garces-Monterrubio, formerly head of financial crime for Europe, Middle East and Africa at RBS's corporate and institutional bank, also left in December to become HSBC's global head of anti-money-laundering for commercial banking, an HSBC spokesman confirmed.

The departures come as RBS, 80%-owned by the British government, faces a potential multibillion-dollar settlement with the Federal Housing Finance Agency over mortgage-backed debt it sold to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae before the 2008 financial crisis.

The bank has said it also expects further fines over its alleged involvement in attempts to manipulate foreign exchange markets. RBS admitted wrongdoing and paid out $634 million in November to U.K. and U.S. authorities over foreign-exchange manipulation allegations.

RBS Chief Executive Ross McEwan warned in October that the bank still had "a long list" of conduct and litigation issues to deal with before it could fully return to health and shed state support. RBS was bailed out by the U.K. government with capital injections in 2008 and 2009 totaling GBP45.5 billion ($69.2 billion).

Mr. McEwan and other RBS executives have also acknowledged that the bank has sometimes struggled to retain staff because of a government-imposed ban on most cash bonuses as well as overall higher pay levels offered by healthier rivals.

The RBS spokesman declined to comment on the reasons behind the recent staff departures.

Meanwhile, the other compliance staff leaving RBS include Mary Squire, the bank's former head of sanctions and anti-money-laundering for the Americas, who started at HSBC on Monday in a similar role.

Nic Fanucci, a director providing RBS's banking executive committee with advice on managing conduct risk, is scheduled to leave the bank in March. Mr. Fanucci will join Standard Chartered as global head of legal and compliance for transactions and products.

Banks across the world have been adding compliance staff to respond to a raft of new banking regulations and to guard against future misconduct by staff. The increased hiring has led to fierce competition for top compliance staffers. Compensation for these employees has risen recently, though it still lags behind those of traders and bankers.

Separately, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne on Wednesday said the British government will decide when to start selling its RBS shareholding shortly after the U.K. general election in May. He said it isn't good for the banking sector or for taxpayers to have such large and complex banks in state hands for too long.

Write to Margot Patrick at margot.patrick@wsj.com and Rachel Louise Ensign at rachel.ensign@wsj.com

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