HSBC had allowed drugs traffickers to launder billions of dollars and billions more to be moved to countries facing sanctions. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters
The reputation of Britain's banking industry took a fresh battering when HSBC was slapped with a record $1.9bn (£1.2bn) fine by US regulators for money laundering and sanctions busting, the first arrests were made in the Libor-rigging investigation, and nationalised Northern Rock handed the taxpayer a £270m bill to compensate customers affected by a mistake in its paperwork.
The US department of justice (DoJ) detailed how HSBC, Britain's biggest bank, allowed drug traffickers to launder billions of dollars in the US and billions more to be moved across borders to countries facing sanctions, such as Burma, Cuba and Libya.
The department spared HSBC a criminal prosecution only because it considered the bank too big to prosecute. Listing a catalogue of mistakes by HSBC over almost a decade, the DoJ admitted that "collateral consequences" were a factor in its decision not to pursue criminal charges. Those consequences, it said, could have included a ban on doing business in the US, resulting in huge job losses.
The fine being paid by HSBC, and a five-year deferred prosecution agreement which will keep the bank und
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/11/banking-libor-fine-hsbc?intcmp=239
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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