In the first of three brief posts today, in order to stay abreast of a busy day in the financial arena, we will begin by looking at news that is coming out of the Department of Justice in the U.S. The news, that the DoJ is changing course on its agreement put in place to deter further transgressions by the multinational bank, is excellent news for the bank but, perhaps, sends a message about the pro-business sentiments that are emerging all the time under the Trump Administration. On two specific occasions here in Financial Regulation Matters , we have looked at HSBC in particular with reference to their almost infamous track record when it comes to financial crime, particularly money laundering. It is no secret that the large multinational bank has been involved in some particularly damaging news stories, including having to pay a £1.9 billion fine to U.S. authorities in 2012 for ‘ exposing the U.S. financial system to money laundering, drug (and) terrorist financing risks ’ an...

In March, here in Financial Regulation Matters , we looked at the developing story of a massive investigation into the laundering of Russian funds by a number of famous financial institutions, including HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays and a host of other institutions. The massive scheme, which runs into the tens of billions of dollars, was brought to the public’s attention in March and detailed a scheme enveloping countries from all over the world, with the obvious consequences being financial institutions coming in for regulatory scrutiny and even (potentially) criminal sanctions, especially with regards to the ongoing situation in the U.S. with the Administration’s alleged connection to Russian officials. However, in this post we shall focus on the most recent development which looks at the role RBS played in the laundering system, with the news coming at a very inopportune time in relation to the bank’s reporting of a £939 million profit for the first 6 months of 2017. The week beg...

Today’s short post looks at the news that Société Générale (hereafter SocGen) has settled with the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) for €963 million ($1.05 billion) over alleged bribery . The settlement, which averted a large court case in London, was the result of a claim from the LIA regarding a $58.4 million payment made to a Libyan businessmen made to secure future investment deals; the investment group had asserted that the payment was a bribe, and thus any trades that occurred afterwards were invalid. In this post, this story will be dissected further, but the ultimate conclusion will be a brief analysis on the culture of big banks; the situation in Libya over recent years is a key indicator to the behaviour of big banks once a market is opened up to them, and for all of us this is an important factor to bear in mind. The Libyan Investment Authority was established in 2006, under the control of then-leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, to control the ever-increasing surplus st...

Continuing the coverage of the U.K.’s largest banking institutions revealing their financial positions, which has included RBS , HSBC , and Lloyds so far, this short post will use the financial report from Barclays, which was released today , to make a point about a theme that is developing amongst the most important banks around the world. During a report on the release of the figures, Barclays’ Chairman, John McFarlane, stated that although the results were very good for the bank, it still faced challenges because ‘ a number of potentially material legacy conduct matters need to be resolved at acceptable cost ’, by which he is referring to a number of investigations by regulatory bodies in to the bank’s conduct surrounding the Crisis. For this post, the focus will be on this continued use of the word ‘legacy’, which denotes a different era to the current era of banking – the issue for this post is that the era in question was only 10 years ago, and multiple infractions continue ...

On the 2 nd of February 2017 six financiers were jailed for a total of almost 50 years for their part in a widespread scheme that drained almost £245 million from HBOS and small businesses. This is an extraordinarily positive step in re-balancing the notion of ‘crime’ so that financial crime, which can be just as damaging as ‘conventional’ crime, and arguably more so, can be punished just as severely. Yet, is it true that this headline-grabbing sentencing promotes the idea that financial crime is considered to be just as serious as any other serious crime? This blog post will briefly discuss the elements of the case, and will ultimately show that whilst the sentencing is indeed worthy of attention, what went before it may show the bias towards treating the crimes of the influential as lesser than that of anybody else. Financial crime can be, and it is argued here is , more damaging to the public than almost anything else. Whilst large-scale crimes are, by definition, shocki...