We’ll have to wait and see if anything comes of this, but I am hopeful:
As regulators ramp up their global investigation into the manipulation of interest rates, the Justice Department has identified potential criminal wrongdoing by big banks and individuals at the center of the scandal.
The department’s criminal division is building cases against several financial institutions and their employees, including traders at Barclays, the British bank, according to government officials close to the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing. The authorities expect to file charges against at least one bank later this year, one of the officials said.
The prospect of criminal cases is expected to rattle the banking world and provide a new impetus for financial institutions to settle with the authorities. The Justice Department investigation comes on top of private investor lawsuits and a sweeping regulatory inquiry led by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Collectively, the civil and criminal actions could cost the banking industry tens of billions of dollars.
I just love this line: “The prospect of criminal cases is expected to rattle the banking world…” Our Galtian Overlords are so used to being above the law that the notion that criminal behavior would be treated criminally just blows their socks off.
Maude
I wish I could sell them Zanax. I’d be rich.
This will be fun to watch.
Jump!
JPL
They won’t be donating to the President though.
WereBear
And in Presidential election news, it’s a great time to run a clueless rich guy who continually acts as though he is above the law.
I really wonder if he still has that 45% floor.
scott (the other one)
I realize the financial world is internationally interconnected, but I can’t shake the feeling that they wouldn’t even be talking bout criminal prosecutions if it were American and not British institutions at the heart of this.
Linda Featheringill
I suspect LOTS of people would love to see criminal charges against the banksters.
satanicpanic
So what? They’ll just retire retroactively and be totally off the hook.
cathyx
If they indeed get prosecuted and declared guilty, fines and community service for all.
PeakVT
The prospect of criminal cases is expected to rattle the banking world…”
Of course, this is a group of people that whines incessantly whenever Obama looks at them the wrong way. So whatever.
scav
@scott (the other one): Barlcay’s may just be the first to flinch and cooperate, it’s how investigations and prosecutions often go. Everything I’ve read says there are others in there.
BGinCHI
We tried it the banksters’ way, now let’s take all their wealth and redistribute it and see how that goes.
Todd
I’m reminded of the douchebag general contractor that stiffed multiple vendors and banks locally. A bricklayer spotted him while he was pulling into a Lexus dealer (looking for a car for his 16 year old). Bricklayer cut him off, dragged him out of the car and beat the shit out of him right in front of his family, all while the guy whimpered that it was all “just business”.
The bricklayer didn’t give a damn about getting locked up, and after release, was pretty proud of himself – he became a minor celeb among local subs.
MikeJ
@Todd: He sounds more like a dom.
Mino
@JPL: Right.
Maude
AP headline:
Rahm Emanuel tells Mitt Romney, “Stop whining about Bain Attacks.”
Mnemosyne
@scott (the other one):
And if American banks weren’t involved, the Brits wouldn’t be looking into it, either. It’s not like the British government has been champing at the bit to bring their banksters under control.
JWL
Count me among those who will believe it when they see it.
dr. bloor
Yeah, right. They’ll end up paying a few cents per dollar of profits in fines, and none of the suits will ever see the inside of a jail.
This is illegal for us mooks. It’s just a cost of doing business for the Overlord Sociopaths.
James E. Powell
@efgoldman:
“Settling” usually means “pleading no contest without admitting guilt.”
Also, settling means that the general public never learns what really happened, what could and should be done to prevent it from happening again.
Also too, settlements usually allow a lot of people to keep a lot of money.
eldorado
if we can’t have the rule of law, we could at least implement a republic of virtue
eldorado
i’d even settle for the comfy chair
General Stuck
All you had to do was watch Bob Woodward talking about how everyone does it with the lying by Wall Streeters to the government. You can see the hubris in Romney whining and apparently feeling he’s covered and more worried about being seen lying to voters, rather than lying to the SEC.
I doubt he has any worries about being charged with any crime by the Obama administration, in the heat of a campaign against the man for president. But it is something I been saying for a long time, that most of the shenanigans that brought about the collapse in 2008, was legal, but that these kinds of investigations proving fraud by top banks and banking officials, takes a long time for one of the hardest crimes to prosecute, and double so with rich people as defendants having the top legal minds at their disposal. Let’s hope this story pans out, as it is likely the only thing that could cause these arrogant assholes to act like lawful responsible citizens. The GOP congress won’t ever do it, due to too many idiot voters. Obama in a second term, has no more worries from elections and campaigns. Maybe that will open the door for more past accountability in all sorts of ways.
Brian R.
If the specter of criminal prosecutions doesn’t rattle them, maybe a few mass demonstrations with a goddamn guillotine in tow will. Fuck these assholes.
WereBear
How about the mothah of all class action suits; on the behalf of every US citizen who saw their net worth drop during the 2008 shenanigans?
Even if every adult in the US got a few hundred bucks; draining their coffers is what will really hurt them.
Roy G.
I’d love to see it happen, but look at how many banks and banksters were punished after the robosigning scandal.
Crime and criminals are a lower class phenomenon – that’s the perception of our society, bought and paid for by teh elite.
Mino
Duh, that is why we buy Congressmen–to make our actions retroactively legal, doncha know. It sure worked for the telecoms, didn’t it? Bi-partisan, too.
General Stuck
@Roy G.:
It doesn’t matter if they end up in prison, or not. What matters here are authorities willing to bring criminal cases/ If they plead out, that will just be like other crimes and criminals do every day around the world. The case they settled with Barclay DID NOT offer immunity to anyone for later criminal charges. I think the robo signing deal was that way as well, though I could be wrong on that. These people understand and respond to actions that engender a fear response to alter their behavior. Their entire professional life is governed by both fear and greed. That could be jail time, or just the willingness of the government to pursue them individually, piercing through the corporate veil to put its huge thumb personally on these asswipes.
Richard Shindledecker
After the tongue bath Obama gave Jamie Dimon on The View I suspect this is all smoke and well…smoke. No ponies for us.
Heliopause
Hopeful of what, exactly?
Ah, I see. “Tens of billions of dollars” across the entire industry. A quick googling shows that Barclay’s made roughly 6 billion pounds profit in both 2010 and 2011. That doesn’t count the billions paid in salaries and bonuses to the execs, of course. And Barclay’s is just one of the 18 megabanks that set LIBOR rates.
Please, if this “tens of billions of dollars” figure is accurate this is just another sick joke of a punishment. It’s as if you and seventeen of your buddies methodically broke into every house in town and stole as much stuff as you could get your hands on, then when you’re finally caught the lot of you get a collective punishment of ten grand in fines.
Lurking Canadian
I don’t so much care about jail time. I’d like to see the fuckers lose everything under RICO, then struggle to get jobs working the drive-thru at Mickey D’s because they have felony convictions on their records.
I think I’d like that more than even guillotine-based solutions, actually.
Howd
Maybe instead of rattling their cages with “threats” of criminal investigations to get the banks to settle, the authorities should just ask the banks “pretty please, with sugar on top”.
Seriously, why are be hoping for the banks to settle? Just throw them all in jail, take away all their money and then we can talk about what to do with the banks.
JoeShabadoo
@efgoldman: Settling is bullshit because you can’t settle on criminal charges.
If I go and rob a bank I can’t settle with the police to get no time (and probably for less than I made). This settling bullshit just shows how Wall Street crimes aren’t actually considered crimes to the people who are supposed to be arresting them.
Rathskeller
@Heliopause: This is why actual jail time is really the only metric that I care about with these financial crimes. The reward is always substantially more than the punishment.
I should say that I used to do software development for a fixed income derivatives desk, long ago, and I don’t even know how to characterize discovering that LIBOR has been used in this way. It’s like hearing that all the refs, not just in a football game, but in the entire NFL, were crooked, willing to make a call this way or that for a price. LIBOR is foundational information for literally trillions of dollars of deals.
russell
I don’t care if it rattles their world or not.
I’m not interested in bringing criminal charges against those guys to “send a message”. I’d like to see criminal charges brought against them because they are freaking criminals.
If that puts the fear of god in them and they straighten up, fine. If not, fine. When the next crop decide they’re smarter than the last guys and start cutting legal corners, lock their sorry asses up, too.
Not fines, because they just pay them with other people’s money. They do everything they do with other people’s money.
Take their *own personal stuff*, not the company’s, and keep taking it until the folks they’ve f*cked over are made whole.
Plus jail.
Plus a lifetime ban from holding any position of fiduciary responsibility, of any kind, including treasurer of their local stamp collecting club.
If they get the message, great. If not, at least they won’t be able to do any further harm.