By Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller
This is a straight up admission.
State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world’s largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system.
Instead, HSBC announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with authorities. The bank, which is based in Britain, faces accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries.
In 2009, it really wasn’t possible to indict one of the largest financial institutions for fraud because it really would bring down the entire financial system. And that’s a problem that the Department of Justice can’t solve; that’s a problem the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the Treasury Department and the regulators have to solve first.
And that’s underlying all of this. Now the SEC is in a different place, because an SEC case is not going to bring down an institution the way a criminal indictment would. It’s a different set of standards.
Policymakers decided that was not a viable option in 2008 and invested huge amounts of treasure and energy to keep them alive. So I think it’s an honest acknowledgment of what’s very, very broken with our financial system and continues to be broken with our financial system.
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To summarize: Prosecution of bankers is impossible because some people would lose money as a result. But, the bank’s actions are leading to killings, which are OK.
Now I get it.
I’m just teasing about just getting it now. I worked on Wall Street for 30 years, so this is just the latest rerun OF THE EXACT SAME THING.
Still, encouraging killing while protecting bankers from losing some money isn’t really right. Is it?
Well, what if they’re telling the truth? That we have a system in which it’s IMPOSSIBLE to punish the guilty WITHOUT punishing (a lot of) the innocent? Or (worse) in which everything you do is legal as long as it involves enough money?
LifelongLib,
Your Point #1 is False. Your Point #2 is Correct.
Point #1 is used as cover for Point #2.
That is the whole WS Game in a nutshell. It’s been played since the beginning (way before I got there).
It’s refreshing the public corruption is now openly admitted by the criminals in power. It was getting rather annoying seeing them pretend to be all self-righteous up till now.
JG,
You may be reading something in, when you see this as admission of corruption. What the Authorities are saying is: “We are very self-righteous. We were even put in this terrible situation that challenged our sworn duties, BUT STRUGGLED TO FIND A WAY TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM A FINANCIAL MELTDOWN OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS”. Amen to that!
The corrupt government officials in the DOJ are refusing to go after fellow criminals because those criminals have too much power. I am not sure how that is not an explicit admission of corruption.
You are correct there.
All depends on what the meaning of “corruption” is. Corruption’s in the eye of the beholder. Rest assured, today’s “corruption” is tomorrow’s “law” if today’s authorities have their way. Same as it ever was.
Then I will define American-style corruption as being two-faced as a society. We love to tell ourselves these putrid lies that we are “free” and that “everyone is equal before the law” and that this is a “democracy”, yet when it comes right down to it the elites can and do get away with anything they want, while everyone else is liable to serve decades in prison for even the most minor or ridiculous of offenses.
As an example, most would categorize assasinating children as both legally and ethically criminal behavior, yet that is official policy in some parts of the government. Just one way that criminals can get away with anything these days.
So the stockholders get hosed for $2B and the perps just walk away – that ain’t justice.
HSBC needs to hand over a list with every transaction and every name that approved the transaction.
I worked with the guy who assembled The List Of Transactions and Approvers from the (previously) largest money laundering scheme.
Nice list. No problems for anybody.
I guess everyone on the list was nice, not naughty.
Well said.
Where/what is the first step towards cleanin’ up that dusty money?
The stockholders are getting hosed!? Be certain that any fine will be financed by YOU w/a loan at very excellent terms
Or do they just write it off against their tax liability?
I don’t think any one person in any one position will ever bring an end to TBTF or make the government behave any differently than they do now. Any chink in the supporting walls of this financial edifice has to be reinforced as quickly as possible, or the entire thing collapses.
By that set of expectations, the government is operating rationally, because the threat is to the groups with the most government control. Well the whole of society would disolve if anything happened to ‘our’ banking system. Perhaps not, but none of those folks are going to be the first to suggest we give it a try.
Creative destruction has to come into play to break up the worthless infrastructure we have piled up in the great quest to tame the biz cycle. I don’t look for anybody in government or business to go along with this, so we are going to have one hell of a collapse at some point. Any guesses as to when?
I got it on my schedule. Specific date to follow.
I’ll drink to that!
Skal! L’chaim! Slainte!
Irish drinking toast:
It is better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there’s no money!
hmmm, maybe that explains the strategy of the central banks the world over…
This really irks!
From Pam Marten’s Wall Sreet on Parade
http://wallstreetonparade.com/
During the July 17 Senate hearing on HSBC, Subcommittee Chairman, Carl Levin, questioned Chistopher Lok, the former head of global banknotes at HSBC Bank USA, about internal emails from HSBC that the Senate had in its possession.
In the first email, a subordinate tells Lok that a proposed bank customer has a “know your customer” profile that “documents various allegations of fraud, internal control weaknesses, and the FBI investigation into terrorist financing…” The colleague was inquiring if a special security status should be placed on this account. Lok responds in an email: “…this is such a large bank hence malfeasance is expected” and recommends no special security status. In a separate email exchange, Lok appears to base his recommendations on the amount of money HSBC might make from the account.
Where’s Lok? Book him already!
This item by Pam Martens should go viral. I’m doing my part.
The NYT Dealbook article that Stoller quotes is an interesting exercise in double-speak and obfuscation; definitely worth following that link. Take this gem:
Um…the charge is a settlement, that’s why the headline reads, HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Charges of Money Laundering. Maybe I’m missing something.
And here’s the somewhat more detailed reasoning for failing to prosecute from the same article:
So, I take it that pension funds are barred from doing business with known money-laundering operations, which seems like a good idea to me. Don’t want your retirement nest-egg rubbing shoulders with Don Corleone’s ill-gotten gains, do you? Anyway, the strange thing here is that everyone knows, and HSBC has admitted that they assisted in money laundering for drug cartels and terrorist-funders. I mean, if you’re concerned about doing business with known money-launders, you should be avoiding HSBC like the plague, since they have admitted to money laundering, indictment or no.
Basically, what the DOJ seems to be saying is, Look, we need pension funds to be allowed to continue doing business with these here money-launderers, so we aren’t going to indict them. Instead we’ll just fine them $2 billion for laundering $60 Trillion. Cool?
And another hilarious thing is that all of this has been going on and has been known about by federal officials for over a decade!
A low-risk for money-laundering?!? Mexico?!? How did they say that sh-t with a straight face and who the hell took them seriously? Yowza…
diptherio,
I can see that you are a person who cares deeply about what’s good for your country. Therefore…
please do not apply for any work where the duties include doing good for your county. You’re just not the right type.
That includes regulation, supervision of rules, enforcement of laws, etc, etc, etc
Sounds like many of the intelligent, would be cognoseti, here are unaware of the extent to which the very financial system is dependent on narco-terrorist financial flows.
Despite your hue and outcry, that something must be done about these criminals, if you understoood the the extent to which these flow keep the system functioning, I doubt but 2%-3% of you would push the Big Red Button.
What’s the Big Red Button?
http://solari.com/blog/the-red-button-problem/
“By Catherine Austin Fitts
In the summer of 2000, I asked a group of 100 people at a conference of spiritually committed people who would push a red button if it would immediately stop all narcotics trafficking in their neighborhood, city, state and country. Out of 100 people, 99 said they would not push such red button. When surveyed, they said they did not want their mutual funds to go down if the U.S. financial system suddenly stopped attracting an estimated $500 billion-$1 trillion a year in global money laundering. They did not want their government checks jeopardized or their taxes raised because of resulting problems financing the federal government deficit.
Our financial profiteering and complicity is not limited to aristocrats and the elites who do their bidding. Our financial dependency on unsustainable economics is broad, ingrained and deep.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTm3Jbr6ePQ
This is the saddest comment I have read in a long time of reading sad postings. Are all people the world over (save you and me) willing to forget there is such a thing as virtue–the virtue of honesty, equality and fairness? What virus has been unleashed on us that so many see corruption, fraud and inequality and do nothing? There is no justice system anymore. It is every man for himself/herself–a different kind of individualism that!
Indeed, these mutual fund “investors” were roped into the Grifter System just as “soldiers” and “workers” in the Military-Industrial Industry in each State of the Union is roped into the Grifter System. Perfect criminal design.
That 100 was probably “spiritually committed” RICH people.
Fitts does move in RICH people circles, after all.
“Spiritually committed” middle class and poor people would probably also refuse to hit the red button because of a misplaced understanding of Christian virtue. If they realized that hitting the red button could destroy a million dollars of upper class wealth for every thousand dollars of lower class wealth it destroyed, they would say “don’t do it” because it wouldn’t be the nicey-nicey Christian thing to do.
“Vengeance committed” lower class majority people might decide to hit the red button. EsPECially if they could be assured that having to live in a trailer would make sure that every RICH person would have to live in a box. Or under a dumpster. I would CERtainly hit the red button IF you gave me a 24/7 webcam feed to some of my favorite rich people so I could SEE them become paupers in real time. Otherwise, how could I be sure it was really happening?
It is the dirty not-so-little secret that accounts used for high-value ML bring in a not-so-little percentage of bank depositor-fee-based income (which, of course, is necessary to pay Bankster salaries, life-styles, the occasional wink-wink fine to the Fed, or the SeC, or DOJ).
This wink-wink game of The Enforcement Establishment bringing charges against banks for ML, resulting in fines and worthless deferred prosecution agreements, whilst all involved (Banks, Regulators, Criminal “Enforcers”) know that ML proceeds are vital to the banks’ bloodstreams which, in turn, are vital to the bloodstreams of the .01% Kleptocracy and therefore not something that can possibly be ended.
The line that “oh, but we can’t indict because the institution will fail and lose its charter” is b-s scary-tactics for the 99% — the truth is that money laundering proceeds are Too Vital (For The Well Being of the .01%) to be shut down. Which would be so easy a first year law student could do it. And I am not exaggerating by much.
But the point is, WHERE would the money be for the “first year law student” to take it on (aka, bite the hand that feeds) in the first place? Now, thar’s the rub!
Yes. The first-year law student was more of a trope than anything else :)
Have to disagree. Deferred prosecution agreements are not worthless at least for their monitors. They are sinecures doled out to suitably distinguished has-beens. They pay a ton of money for what is essentially rubber stamp work without taking any time away from anyone’s golf game. Good corrupt work if you can get it.
You got it!
Worked in a bank that was the posterboy for money laundering. Soon after the vaulted deferred prosecution agreement was put in, the enforcement monitors began finding major money laundering again. Should have seen them squirming about what actions to take.
What to do, what to do, there’s money laundering? OMG!
Thanks for clarifying that Hugh. DPAs are indeed a rich source of rents for the has-beens and cronies of those in positions to dole them out. Which may even (insterestingly) be linked to the uselessness of DPA’s from an old fashioned law-enforcement perspective (e.g. deterrence, punishment, etc. — quaint notions, I know.) Klepto-Law fashions a fake remedy (the DPA) IN ORDER to generate yet another source of rents, looting, etc. In the vein of not letting any good opportunities to invent new “products” (here, the DPAs) for extracting rents. And if the rubes see the DPA as a sign that DOJ is “on the beat” well, that’s just cherry on the cake.
When I wrote my post I was, narrowly, thinking about DPA utility (uselessness) in the context of effective law enforcement … e.g., how one can look back 20 years and do a chart listing 6 banks and the DPAs they’ve signed over that limited timeline — which says it all (
“to dole them out” should be “to dole out the DPA monitor gigs”
If the bank is too large to indict, OK, why aren’t the individual (real “people”) responsible not charged with criminal offences?
That’s the real $64 million question. Which is why no media outlet with Access to Holder’s and Breuer’s office will ever ask it. It would be irresponsible not to speculate that the true reason is that those individuals — for example Mr. Lok (in Pam Martens’s story linked in a comment upthread) — are simply categorically immune to the application of our great laws. Because freedom and markets!
We jailed “Letter of Credit” Michael Milkin, and took away his $750 million annual bonus. Why is Lok so special? Calling Dr. Black, Dr. Black, Dr. Black, please come to the operating theatre.
Yes. Over to you DannyBoy.
Dirk77,
The bestest one I saw resulted in a fine and a deferred prosecution agreement.
Now, of course, that deferred prosecution agreement was violated (just can’t help ourselves in these matters).
So, we really took it on the chin.
No, I don’t mean prosecutions for violating the non-prosecution agreement.
That would be too linear.
We found some technology to solve the entire thing.
The End.
Sleep tight, boys and girls.
Because the “U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, Assistant U.S. Attorney General, Lanny Breuer, and former OCC head ( 2004-2010), John Dugan, all hailed from the (same) corporate law firm, Covington & Burling.” ? ? ?
http://wallstreetonparade.com/
Why isn’t John dugan, the head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) 2004-2010, under investigation if these crimes happned on his watch, were known about and allowed to continue ?
Well then, the DoJ must be stocked with one useless pack of wasters.
In law, the directors of the company are legally responsible for it. The DoJ should simply have indicted the directors, personally, for the crimes of the company under their watch.
This nonsense of treating companies like legally responsible entities is a hangup that Western legal systems need to get over. You can’t jail a company. It’s not possible to pin up the HSBC logo, beat it with sticks, and call the result justice served. Justice and consequences only work when they are applied to individuals. Imagine trying to deal with the mafia by fining the family for every crime.
It’s perfectly possible to throw every book in the land at the directors and executive officers of a company while still leaving the company intact. In fact, recievers do this every day of the week. The excuses of DoJ officials should be more compelling than these lazy excuses for not doing work.
But OMF, that “hangup”, as you call it, is the major feature of our financial system. Changing that little “hangup” changes everything, and we wouldn’t want that.
Would we?
The Bankers crime requires so little effort, it almost always goes unseen.
Silly me! I thought that I was beyond outrage with all of these clowns; the bankers, rentiers, government officials in this and the war criminal administration before it, etc. But this stinks!
In a country of law, this criminal enterprise would be seized, shuttered, broken up, its managers and BoD would be indicted for money laundering, operating a corrupt enterprise, treason and sent to jail for many of their collective lifetimes.
But no, they pay a small fine. All this and Bradley Manning is in jail and on trial for exposing the truth! Even Kafka would shake his head.
The honourable Baron Green of Hurstpierpoint appreciates the harsh punishment of the misbehavior against the corporate social responsibility. Her Majesty’s government is strongly committed to this approach and will ensure the rule of law on these matters.
Especially in trade and foreign direct investments it is essential for an open and free country that it can trust the sources of foreign investments. The UK in particular has always emphasised the need of integrity on these matters.
Minister of State
for UK Trade and
Investment
Baron Green of
Hurstpierpoint
(former CEO of
HSBC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Green_%28banker%29
This post is a good example of why Basel III is irrelevant. TBTF means too big to prosecute means too big to regulate. We got the housing bubble and the meltdown because banks committed or abetted millions of frauds. They continued these frauds and crimes throughout the chain from mortgage origination through title recording to the trusts to the securitizations and all the CDO and derivative CDO based upon them and then into the foreclosure process with robosigning and a host of other forgeries, even though if the black letter of the law applied I doubt there was a mortgage written in the 2000s where the title holder and promissory note holder were one and the same, that is that a bank had standing to seek a foreclosure. At this time too, it was an open secret that several banks were engaged up to their eyelids in various kinds of money laundering. So they did all this and more, brought the world economy to its knees, and instead of being broken up and their managements shipped off to jail they were rewarded with multi-trillion dollar bailouts. In light of all this, knowing that sovereigns will always backstop them, what incentive do they have to follow even mild regulatory regimes like Basel III?
The thrust of any of the Basel accords, limiting bank leverage is reasonable and important. Basel 2 was never implemented in the US, and nor will be 3. We are still struggling with Dodd-Frank, and derivatives will NEVER be regulated – the Elephant in the room.
The UK and US are about to pretend they know how to resolve a big bank.
We should tell them to run test case with a criminal prosecution. They can just draw straws, there’s a case to be made on every TBTF bank.
Iceland did it, no? Why can’t we (i.e. wind down a huge bank)?
Look, who said “God’s work” had to be legal?
You card, you, Lambert S.
Damn, I wish I had thought of that one!
In my thoughts, it is hard to imagine all that has been wrought, as confluence of events. What ever moral or ethical stripe, the elites acted with forethought. Almost[?] in a Death Pack sort of way, via the financial instruments and complete disregard of Laws – they wrote – concerning property, you point out and many other examples.
Skippy… history is full of this gambit, its late game stuff, it does not forebode well for – any – lot. The sucky part is – this time – its global and not just a regional affair, developed or not. The elasticity of the past is now piano wire. Cannibalism is an act of desperation, it repeats. Electronic Cannibalism….
Dear Lanny Brewer:
Thanks so much for your latest vigorous legal action against yet another money laundering scheme.
But there is something bothering me – I’m sure it is just a small item but here it is –
In today’s news we learn that an FBI agent and his wife were indicted, prosecuted, fined, and jailed for wire and mail fraud, for lying to the FBI, and for money laundering.
As you may know there is a building in your capital city that has the words “Equal Justice for All” carved in stone for all to see.
So does the FBI have a case that “Equal Justice for All” is a lie and in fact that these folks are lying to the FBI ?
HSBC should be made to pay 3 time that amount
2 billion is nothing for the damage they have cost people
More like 300 times. The NYT Dealbook article reports that $60T was laundered by HSBC, in over 7,200 accounts.
‘State and federal authorities decided against indicting ANYbody rich in any financial case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize any of the world’s largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system.
Instead, all the rich announced on Tuesday that they had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with authorities, which will be paid for by the authorities givng the rich the entire sum of the fine, plus bonuses to the rich for their inconvience. The rich, who own Britain and the world, faces accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries, as well as every bad thing that has happened financially.’
There, increased the truthiness to metaphysical clarity…
The mob runs money.
Eric Holder and his entire DOJ be damned.
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.”
Election eve speech at Madison Square Garden (October 31, 1936)Franklin Delano Roosevelt
As much as I think the The Department of Homeland Security is a failure (a ton of delivered cocaine costs about the same as it did pre-DHS) , a guise to make people feel safe within our borders, a misadventure in contradiction to recommendations issued in the 9/11 commission report, a huge propaganda tool similar to Nazi Germany’s by the use of ‘Homeland’ in it’s title. As much as I think they are a failure, they go one step further in demonstrating their failure by, not bringing to bear the provisions of the Patriot Act, provisions that have metastasized throughout our legal framework. Laws that were designed to prevent the flow of funds and assets to ‘terrorists and terrorist organizations’ under severe penalties (big time jail time and massive forfeiture penalties). As much as I think support of the Patriot Act provisions that violate constitutional protections is direct evidence of our elected officials willingness to violate their oath of office…amounting to high crimes against this country. One thing remains clear.
These TBTF institutions are definitely continuing to fund these terrorist organizations through use opaque financial instruments of the OTC variety. They no longer have the defense of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ by their own admissions. Any negotiation for fines should be off the table at this point as, they have shown their willingness to undermine the ability of this country to defend the rights of it’s citizens, aided and abetted enemies, provided material support to our enemies, subverted congress, subverted the rule of law, subverted our congress etc…
Lest I not mention Grover Norquest, who has subverted parts of congress (IMO: the dumb-ass congressmen who disregard their own oath of office by taking an oath to a private shithead, in contravention to their oath to uphold the constitution)—a congress now committed to defending the criminality of the financial sector who has undermined the law and aided the enemy.
Failure on a massive scale to prosecute enemies of these united states. It is reprehensible.
“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” -James Madison
“A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“We, the People, are the rightful masters of both the Congress and the Courts. Not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who have perverted it.” – Abraham Lincoln
Barofsky at SEC? Impossible! Even if our lap-dog president were to bite his owners’ hands and nominate Neil, the Senate would squash his nomination like a bug. As Dick Durbin said – the banks own this place (U.S. Capitol). So Matt, now that Grayson is heading back to D.C., are you going to join him so maybe, just maybe, We the People might challenge the banks’ ownership papers. Perhaps we could find a flaw in their paperwork ala LPS.
This bank is not too big to fail. It has already failed. Any institution that relies on massive criminality backed by taxpayer funds to cover its gambling losses cannot be called a sucessful enterprise.
What is failing is the world economy, in large part because of the massive criminality of the elites and enforced taxpayer bailouts to cover their losses. Clearly the answer lies in jail time for criminal elites and the end of bailouts.
These fines are just a cost of doing business.
Could the relevant DOJ officials who shielded HSBC from prosecution under the TBTF rubric be sued or something for dereliction of duty? Misfeasance? Malfeasance?
Perhaps dues-paying membership-based organizations could be invented and funded-up to pursue such cases against federal crime-coddlers? Perhaps such organizations could even
sell magazines or newsletters to members (and even nonmembers) with titles like Criminal Crimebank News.
Or The Criminal Crimebank Criminal Reporter. Or some such.
The moment when the Covington & Burling Justice Department is brought to heel for malfeasance in shielding their Kleptocratic Masters from prosecutions and jail will be the same moment when we have the USA’s first Bastille Day.
This can be read in many ways, some of them positive.
For instance. Drug dealers are regular businessmen subject to arbitrary criminalization by the crazy laws created by the gov’t to appease the stupid self-righteous constituency that voted this gov’t into power. The bank knows this and in good faith decides to help the troubled drug-business job-creators to circumvent the stupid laws, making a small profit as a side show of its courageous stance.
The gov’t also knows those laws are stupid so instead of sending the bank operatives to a prison cell it decides to create an indirect tax on the bank business with drug entrepreneurs to the amount of 1.92 billion. Since the gov’t represents the people at large, a fact that we all know is fundamentally true, everybody is better off with the deal. We should be celebrating this instance of rationality, and understanding that in order to continue appeasing the stupid self-righteous constituency it is necessary to deploy a smokecreen based on TBTF stories and such.
Same reasoning can be applied to so-called ‘terrorist’ bank customers knowing that our God-blessed America has not been hit by terrorist enemies since more than a decade. All those terrorists are far away now, doing their stuff on God-forsaken places inhabited by Untermensch and their offspring.
So all is good, no need to show off our self-righteousness over an essentially rational deal.
Except of course that the same laundry machines which clean up the drug money also clean up the bribe money and the embezzlement money and the extortion money and all the contract-murder money and etc.
Also, it is only multi-billion dollar drug money players who can get these concierge-laundry services. The suburban basement marijuana home-grower can’t take his/her piddly little drug money to the same big gigabuck concierge laundromats.
This is what I know: my local guerrilla cultivator, an excellent grower of the critical mass variety, takes his cash to the bank, no questions asked.
is shamefull and disgusting the double standar used by the doj in other woeds if you have lots of money and contribute to political campaign is ok to laundry money and brake the law and get a way with it if you dont have money you to jail jail for a long time see fcpa joel esquenazi and you see the double standar of unjustice