Serious Flawed Office

Loughton_Monkey

I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of two articles on the BBC website. One denegrating the SFO for failure to secure convictions for financial miscreants.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19323170

And the other about 15 or so investigations, worldwide, into such things as Libor fixing and Money Laundering.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19323954

Who has any confidence in anyone from Barclays, or HSBC, will be 'banged up good and proper' any time soon?

I cannot imagine anything other than the most casual investigations would find that the laws have well and truly been broken at the corporate level. So what stops them prosecuting?

Presumably, it's the difficulty in apportioning blame as between (say) Bob Diamond, and the 3 or 4 levels of reporting below him and the poor liitle oik who's job it was to phone in their daily borrowing deals.

Surely its not difficult to bring in the little oik and start throwing the book at him. A little bit of ".. yer goin' to go down for 15 years for this, sunshine..." will have the guy singing like a canary about his boss. And it's then only a matter of time before it will rise to a level where it will 'stick'. Preferably Diamond, but anyway at a level high enough for it to put the fear of God up the rest of the city?

Surely Azil Nadir should not be left in jail on his own? He should be able to rub shoulders with far more 'celebrity bankers' whilst serving his time? Once banged up, these miscreants could not only trade (like all the other criminals) in snout, mobile phones, and drugs, but in derivatives - futures etc. - in them?

CLAPTON

It would seem to me that when barclays were manipulating LIBOR rates in their own favour, Mervyn was manipulating the LIBOR rate for RBS and HBOS (as he knew they were bankrupt).

Indeed one might argue, that if Mervin had been honest about the affairs of RBS and HBOS then Barclays wouldn't have needed to manipulate the LIBOR rates.

And it seems this mad government is going to give more power to the BoE merely to spite Gordon.

keeps us amused I suppose.

antrobus

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Serious Flawed Office

No, no, no.

It's the Serious Farce Office. Any reader of the City Slicker column in Private Eye can tell you that.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

...Who has any confidence in anyone from Barclays, or HSBC, will be 'banged up good and proper' any time soon?...

Not me for one.

Although I understand that the Americans (who are supposed to be better at this sort of thing) haven't had much success in prosecuting bankers either. The problem is that you generally 'prove' fraud by asking the jury to 'follow the money'. With something like the LIBOR fixing scandal it's darned difficult when there isn't really any money in the first place.

purch

If you want to prosecute those involved in the alleged LIBOR fixing, what exactly do you intend to prosecute them for ?

The British Bankers Association is a trade organisation, and their two subsidiaries, BBALibor Ltd, and the Foreign Exchange and Money Markets Committee are responsible for the operation and management on a day to day basis of LIBOR.

Submitting "false" rates to this body might be against their rules, but it is hardly a crime.

The main problem highlighted by all this, is that LIBOR is considered an "official" rate, whereas in reality it is a benchmark of the contributions made by Banks who are all members of a cosy club.

It is not an official anything, and never has been.

chewmylegoff

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of two articles on the BBC website. One denegrating the SFO for failure to secure convictions for financial miscreants.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19323170

And the other about 15 or so investigations, worldwide, into such things as Libor fixing and Money Laundering.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19323954

Who has any confidence in anyone from Barclays, or HSBC, will be 'banged up good and proper' any time soon?

I cannot imagine anything other than the most casual investigations would find that the laws have well and truly been broken at the corporate level. So what stops them prosecuting?

Presumably, it's the difficulty in apportioning blame as between (say) Bob Diamond, and the 3 or 4 levels of reporting below him and the poor liitle oik who's job it was to phone in their daily borrowing deals.

Surely its not difficult to bring in the little oik and start throwing the book at him. A little bit of ".. yer goin' to go down for 15 years for this, sunshine..." will have the guy singing like a canary about his boss. And it's then only a matter of time before it will rise to a level where it will 'stick'. Preferably Diamond, but anyway at a level high enough for it to put the fear of God up the rest of the city?

Surely Azil Nadir should not be left in jail on his own? He should be able to rub shoulders with far more 'celebrity bankers' whilst serving his time? Once banged up, these miscreants could not only trade (like all the other criminals) in snout, mobile phones, and drugs, but in derivatives - futures etc. - in them?

don't expect anything significant. their budget is so small it is a joke. £30 million a year to prosecute all serious fraud... even £300 million wouldn't be enough to do a proper job.

until we start spending realistic amounts of money to fund fraud prosecutions, we are unlikely to see many people going to jail for fraud.

chewmylegoff

purch wrote: »

If you want to prosecute those involved in the alleged LIBOR fixing, what exactly do you intend to prosecute them for ?

The British Bankers Association is a trade organisation, and their two subsidiaries, BBALibor Ltd, and the Foreign Exchange and Money Markets Committee are responsible for the operation and management on a day to day basis of LIBOR.

Submitting "false" rates to this body might be against their rules, but it is hardly a crime.

The main problem highlighted by all this, is that LIBOR is considered an "official" rate, whereas in reality it is a benchmark of the contributions made by Banks who are all members of a cosy club.

It is not an official anything, and never has been.

if i ask you to misrepresent "Thing A", and you do it, and we both know that the effect of that is that i make more money at someone else's expense, then you don't need Thing A to be an official measure, you just need to be (attempting) wrongfully to gain a profit /cause loss. much of this behaviour probably occurred before the fraud act became law, so would just be good old consipiracy to defraud.

Loughton_Monkey

purch wrote: »

If you want to prosecute those involved in the alleged LIBOR fixing, what exactly do you intend to prosecute them for ?.......

Fraud by false representation (Section 2)

The defendant:

• made a false representation
• dishonestly
• knowing that the representation was or might be untrue or misleading
• with intent to make a gain for himself or another, to cause loss to another or to expose another to risk of loss.

The offence is entirely focused on the conduct of the defendant.

Seems pretty clear to me!

purch

Thanks, I was only asking a question.

Now I know what you intend to prosecute them for.

Fraud by false representation (Section 2)

Jolly good :T

Now it's pretty clear to me as well :eek:

Generali

purch wrote: »

If you want to prosecute those involved in the alleged LIBOR fixing, what exactly do you intend to prosecute them for ?

The British Bankers Association is a trade organisation, and their two subsidiaries, BBALibor Ltd, and the Foreign Exchange and Money Markets Committee are responsible for the operation and management on a day to day basis of LIBOR.

Submitting "false" rates to this body might be against their rules, but it is hardly a crime.

The main problem highlighted by all this, is that LIBOR is considered an "official" rate, whereas in reality it is a benchmark of the contributions made by Banks who are all members of a cosy club.

It is not an official anything, and never has been.

That's not true though: Libor is used by banks to set interest rates on many contracts from simple loans through to interest rate swaps, where Libor usually defines the floating side, and many other derivatives contracts.

purch

Yes of course, LIBOR (BBALIBOR) is used as an official rate by Exchanges to settle contracts, and as the benchmark for loans and other transactions, but that is the choice of those who choose to use it.

LIBOR itself is just a benchmark rate collated by a trade organisation.

as they say themselves on their website The BBA is a trade association - not a commercial data vendor

purch

......on the other hand the BBA do sell licences to receive and/or distribute the data, so maybe I should shut up now :eek: