You won’t believe this, but some big banks may have broken the law again
Just as markets were digesting the $2.6 billion penalty imposed on Credit Suisse for helping American clients avoid taxes, news from Brussels suggests that yet another big fine is looming for a few other banking giants. Today the European Commission accused JPMorgan, HSBC, and Crédit Agricole with rigging euro interest rates, alleging that they acted in a cartel to manipulate Euribor, a key interbank lending rate.
The three banks refused to settle the antitrust case in December last year, when the commission fined eight other banks and brokers a record €1.7 billion ($2.3 billion) for their roles in the rate-rigging cartel. Settling the case saved the accused 10% of the headline fine, on top of other discounts based on their degree of co-operation with regulators.
JPMorgan, HSBC, and Crédit Agricole must now answer the commission’s charges without the offer of leniency that comes from settling. That said, throughout the financial crisis European regulators have been seen as softer than their American counterparts, with Brussels wielding more limited powers and showing less of an appetite to impose big penalties. Even after settling with the EU in last year’s euro interest rate case, Société Générale is challenging its €446 million fine in court, alleging “a manifest error of assessment” in calculating it.
The three banks that were charged today will hope to benefit from the eurocrats’ presumed timidity. In theory, EU cartel fines carry a penalty of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue, which would imply a combined fine of more than $18 billion, according to the bank’s latest annual results.
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http://qz.com/211455/you-wont-believe-this-but-some-big-banks-may-have-broken-the-law-again/
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Here's the thing that really grinds me: The banking/financial system is already rigged legally to favor the banks and 1%, yet these greedy asswipes continue to break even the laughably lax laws that govern them and the added costs of their greed and market manipulation is ultimately borne on the backs of the rest of us.
These types of crimes must start carrying stiff prison sentences for the individuals involved in addition to monetary penalties if we are ever going to see it end.