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Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

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11–20 of 70 posts

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#11
post #8
post #5

There's no point whatsoever to fine banks, its stupid beyond belief. First, its like issuing a speeding ticket to a billionaire, second, the money does not come from the pocket of the offender, and third, if the unimaginable happens and some bank goes belly up because of this, then we, the taxpayers will bail it out. Again.

Having a record of past misbehaviour may be useful in a future fight. Even a billionaire has his driving license revoked if he's repeatedly caught speeding. Sums that are pocket change to JPMorgan are still usefully spent in the public interest. I don't know if 60 million Euros are, in fact, pocket change for JPMorgan. I cynically assume that they budgeted in an accurate amount for fines and other regulatory hiccups…

> Even a billionaire has his driving license revoked if he's repeatedly caught speeding.

More likely his driver. The billionaire can just hire another one.

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#12
I wish -- just once -- there would be a story where a bank is actually punished in a meaningful way.

Look at this way: A bank is fined $x for doing an action which generated $y. If x The libor scandal cost the U.S. at least $6 billion in interest charges (y) and another $4 billion just to unwind their positions. Whereas the banks have only been fined $2.1 billion to date (x). When you take inflation into account and the fact that this is a world wide financial scandal (libor influences a $350 trillion derivatives market), the math is skewed even heavier in the direction of banks having had a sizable revenue stream after the fines.

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#13

Does anyone have any idea what happens to the money gathered from these fines?

Gets reinjected in a special fund that the EU can then use where they want. It's usually just injected in the central budget, to reduce the contribution each member country has to pay.

And contrary to popular opinion this fund is on the order of 0.1 percent of the EU budget. I've heard the "omg, the EU runs on American corporations' money" thing a little too often.

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#14
post #5

There's no point whatsoever to fine banks, its stupid beyond belief. First, its like issuing a speeding ticket to a billionaire, second, the money does not come from the pocket of the offender, and third, if the unimaginable happens and some bank goes belly up because of this, then we, the taxpayers will bail it out. Again.

I agree with this. Fining a big organization effectively means fining their clients. They'll just pass on the costs.

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#15

I wish -- just once -- there would be a story where a bank is actually punished in a meaningful way. Look at this way: A bank is fined $x for doing an action which generated $y. If x The libor scandal cost the U.S. at least $6 billion in interest charges (y) and another $4 billion just to unwind their positions. Whereas the banks have only been fined $2.1 billion to date (x). When you take inflation into account and…

I think you mean "that y is far larger than x"

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#16

I wish -- just once -- there would be a story where a bank is actually punished in a meaningful way. Look at this way: A bank is fined $x for doing an action which generated $y. If x The libor scandal cost the U.S. at least $6 billion in interest charges (y) and another $4 billion just to unwind their positions. Whereas the banks have only been fined $2.1 billion to date (x). When you take inflation into account and…

I think you mean "that y is far larger than x"

Yes, thank you. I corrected it.

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#17
post #5

There's no point whatsoever to fine banks, its stupid beyond belief. First, its like issuing a speeding ticket to a billionaire, second, the money does not come from the pocket of the offender, and third, if the unimaginable happens and some bank goes belly up because of this, then we, the taxpayers will bail it out. Again.

I agree with this. Fining a big organization effectively means fining their clients. They'll just pass on the costs.

If they can raise their prices to pass on the costs, why haven't they done so before, increasing their profits? If they can't, how is that passing on the costs?

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#18

I wish -- just once -- there would be a story where a bank is actually punished in a meaningful way. Look at this way: A bank is fined $x for doing an action which generated $y. If x The libor scandal cost the U.S. at least $6 billion in interest charges (y) and another $4 billion just to unwind their positions. Whereas the banks have only been fined $2.1 billion to date (x). When you take inflation into account and…

> The libor scandal cost the U.S. at least $6 billion in interest charges (y) and another $4 billion just to unwind their positions.

Got a reference for that? Not being a dick just interested to read more. For that amount of damage to have occured in Libor is an interesting and important concept. An open way to show its calculation should exist.

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#19
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gets reinjected in a special fund that the EU can then use where they want. It's usually just injected in the central budget, to reduce the contribution each member country has to pay.

And contrary to popular opinion this fund is on the order of 0.1 percent of the EU budget. I've heard the "omg, the EU runs on American corporations' money" thing a little too often.

And indeed the converse happens often enough; Credit Suisse, RBS, Barclays and UBS have paid large fines (multi billion) to the US over the last few years.

Re: Four Banks, Including JPMorgan, Fined in Europe Over ‘Cartel’ Behavior

#20
There are a lot of comments along the lines of "why are the fines so low" or "why is nobody doing jail time?" And the answer to both those questions is: stiffer punishment would require stronger proof. Cartel activity, like much white collar crime in general, is extremely difficult to prosecute, because the difference between totally legal conduct and illegal conduct comes down to what people are thinking. Instead of being able to point to a huge stash of drugs, cases come down to the fine points of "who knew what when" and "who talked to who and about what."

To impose punitive fines or jail time, you need to bring criminal actions where you need to prove beyond reasonable doubt cases where the proof is in peoples' heads. Civil fines, on the other hand, have a much lower burden of proof: more likely than not.[1] That's why civil penalties and deferred prosecution agreements,[2] have become the tool of choice for regulators.

Frankly, you don't really want to live in a world where the government can impose criminal penalties on businesses for such loose facts as these. Understandably, banks aren't the most sympathetic defendants, but extrapolate this reasoning to the tech industry. Should Bill Gates be in jail for his role in the Microsoft antitrust activity? Should Eric Schmidt be in jail for his role in the employee wage suppression collusion?

[1] This description is America centric but the operative law is roughly similar in Europe.

[2] A deferred prosecution agreement is a settlement where a company pays a fine, agrees not to do whatever bad thing it did, usually agrees to some number of years of monitoring, in return for which the government defers charges and eventually drops them if the monitoring period ends without incident.

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