$5.6B In Fines Against Major Banks Seems Like A Lot. Here’s Why It Won’t Deter Corporate Crime.
ByOn April 11, 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a record-breaking settlement with Xerox XRX +1.24% stemming from the company’s alleged accounting fraud stretching back a number of years. “Such conduct calls for stiff sanctions,” announced Paul Berger, then the commission’s Associate Director of Enforcement, “including, in this case, the imposition of the largest fine ever obtained by the SEC against a public company in a financial fraud case.” The fine, which the SEC dubbed as “unprecedented” at the time, totaled $10 million.
The $5.6 billion settlement announced earlier today for charges related to the manipulation of currency exchanges makes the Xerox settlement seem pedestrian by comparison. The five banks included in the deal – Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase JPM -0.79%, Barclays , the Royal Bank of Scotland , and UBS – settled claims with various American and British enforcement bodies and all but UBS will plead guilty to criminal charges…
$5.6B In Fines Against Major Banks Seems Like A Lot. Here’s Why It Won’t Deter Corporate Crime.
