It seems like a common occurrence that individual bankers continue to escape criminal prosecution for their corporate crimes, and those corporations are allowed to settle their cases and continue with business as usual. Why is that allowed? Are the CEOs of mega-banks too big to jail?
Though fraudulent practices at banks contributed to America’s financial meltdown, to date no Wall Street titan has been convicted of a crime connected to the crisis. FRONTLINE investigates why Wall Street’s leaders have escaped prosecution for any fraud related to the sale of bad mortgages.
Here's the trailer. The entire report can be seen online at PBS.
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ReplyDeleteThe premise that's been spread around about the lack of corporate criminal accountability is that the Government declines to criminally-prosecute or hold convicted banking corporations or their leaders criminally accountable with a prison sentence like lower-level criminals, is because of a "perceived" fear that prosecuting a "too big to fail" bank will hurt the economy.
ReplyDeleteBut, what's the reasoning behind allowing other, non-banking, large corporations to settle their crimes with only monetary penalties, hold none of their leaders individually accountable, and allow them to continue to stay in business after conviction?
For example - these two recent cases initiated from whistleblower lawsuits.
1. The recent Government allowed settlement with Par Pharmaceuticals for intentional and criminal misbranding of one it's drugs.
2. The recent Government allowed settlement with CH2M Hill Hanford Group and its parent company, CH2M Hill Companies, for knowingly and willfully engaging in widespread time card fraud.
The type of prized settlements given to large corporations don't seem to be given to the average-American small corporations. Small corporate individual leaders who perpetrate these types of crimes are criminally-prosecuted, given prison sentences, and forced to closed their corporations when convicted. So, why are the large corporations held to a different judicial standard?
I think it's because of what I've been saying in this blog since I started it, that we live in a Corporatocracy. The politicians work on behalf of the large corporations, not in the interests of the American public as a whole.
Of course, I'd like to think that my opinion is misguided, but I continue to find evidence provided by the Government itself that backs up my views. If there's anyone who can show me where I'm erring, please feel free to point it out in the comment section below.
Via Senator Bernie Sanders, a summation of Bank Fraud.
ReplyDeleteVia Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone - While Wronged Homeowners Got $300 Apiece in Foreclosure Settlement, Consultants Who Helped Protect Banks Got $2 Billion
ReplyDeleteCitigroup announced Monday that it had agreed to pay mortgage-finance giant Fannie Mae $968 million to resolve claims on 3.7 million home loans that have soured or might go bad. And again, no one is held criminally-liable, no one goes to prison, and business continues as usual.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that the only people being persecuted, or prosecuted for their actions, are the whistleblowers whom inform the American public about these crimes. What a shame.
Source: WAPO - Citigroup pays Fannie Mae $968 million to resolve mortgage claims
Here it is at the end of September 2013, and these banksters and corporate leaders are still NOT being held criminally-accountable for their crimes, and there is no good reason for it.
ReplyDeleteIf this long-term, overt behavior on behalf of our Government not to criminally prosecute them doesn't scream to you that we live in a corporatocracy which transcends any type of political partisanship, then nothing else will.
According to the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists -
"Dated just five days after Rothstein’s $1.2 billion fraud exploded into public view around Halloween Day in October 2009, the e-mails show that TD Bank’s President for Florida was aware that his subordinate, Frank Spinosa, had signed sham “lock letters” that assure Rothstein’s victims that the large sums they had “invested” in Rothstein’s scheme were secure. Rothstein’s fraud involved selling fake shares in legal settlements to wealthy individual and corporate victims using accounts at TD and at Gibraltar Bank, in Miami."
Just some more recent bankster civil-penalty nonsense news reports -
ReplyDeleteCitigroup Inc on Wednesday said it agreed to pay $395 million to Freddie Mac to resolve claims of potential flaws in roughly 3.7 million mortgages it sold to the housing finance company from 2000 to 2012. Citigroup, the third-largest U.S. bank, said the settlement also covers potential future claims arising from the loans bought by Freddie Mac, a large purchaser and guarantor of home loans.
Read more at - Reuters: Citigroup to pay Freddie Mac $395 million on suspect mortgages
A reckoning of Wall Street sins is taking shape in Washington, with the Justice Department negotiating a historic fine of at least $11 billion with the banking sector’s largest and most influential firm, JPMorgan, over practices that led to the nation’s financial crisis. And a person familiar with the matter said the $11 billion represented “a floor” for what JPMorgan would ultimately pay to wipe away a bevy of ongoing civil and criminal probes into its mortgage business.
Read more at - WaPo: JPMorgan settlement with Justice Department could exceed $11 billion
And to top off the nonsense news of the day -
"Meaningful monetary penalties - whether against companies or individuals - play a very important role in a strong enforcement program," SEC Chair Mary Jo White said in a speech in Chicago on Thursday. "They make companies and the industry sit up and take notice of what our expectations are and how vigorously we will pursue wrongdoing," she said. Harry Markopolos wasn't readily available for comment.
Read more at - Reuters: SEC chair says big fines key to attacking wrongdoing