The more that comes to light about the nefarious activities of the Big four banks, the more extraordinary it is that these banks (a) demand a return to business as usual (which of course caused the financial crash in the first place), (b) continue to fight back against any reforms of a dysfunctional finance sector, feeble though these measures are, (c) show not a scintilla of remorse or apology for the decade of disaster they’ve imposed on ordinary people and the economy as a whole (remember Bob Diamond’s infamous comment “It’s time to move on” as though nothing had happened), and (d) have never been held to account by prosecutions of the chief executives, finance directors and other executives responsible. This is all the more staggering when what has now been revealed is the enormous extent to which all 4 banks not only indulged in, but actively promoted, tax evasion/avoidance on an industrial scale. Barclays has 385 subsidiary companies in tax havens (36% of all its subsidiaries), HSBC has 550, Lloyds has 290, and RBS has 404! Continue reading
Tagged with Barclays
Bank bosses, it seems, like the police are never guilty
So who instructed Barclays to reduce its submissions to LIBOR, the London inter-bank offer rate which the Economist recently estimated underpins contracts worldwide worth over £60 trillions? On this rather crucial question the Treasury Select Committee has done a fudge. The answer apparently is – nobody.
Del Missier, the chief operating officer at Barclays, admitted he had told his staff in October 2008 to cut submissions after a conversation with Diamond, the chief executive, who was relaying a conversation with Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank of England. So who was responsible for this colossal rate-fixing scandal which continued for 6 years – Diamond, Tucker or Del Missier? Continue reading
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After Barclays now it’s HSBC: will corruption at the top ever stop?
HSBC now looks to be heading for the biggest fine ever for Europe’s biggest bank. It stands accused of failing to properly implement money-laundering controls designed to prevent terrorists and others from using its services to advance their criminal ends.
Two facts stand out from this case. One is that HSBC is a British bank, but the case is being brought in the US, just as the case against Barclays for interest rate fixing (Libor and Euribor) was also brought in the US. Why are the British authorities so asleep at the wheel? Second, why has it taken so long for this financial malfeasance on such an industrial scale to come to light since both the Libor scandal and the failure of anti-money-laundering controls have been in play since 2004-5?
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Bank inquiry could open up secret Tory-City deals which threaten government
So why are the Tories so determined to block a proper judge-led inquiry into the whole corrupt culture of banking which is so obviously needed? Their only argument is the need for speed to deal with the shocking LIBOR revelations. Ed Miliband yesterday at PMQs neatly overturned that argument by saying that a judge-led inquiry should concentrate immediately on the LIBOR issue and report on it by the end of December, and that then their wider but time-limited inquiry should report on the broader record and culture of the banks within the next 12 months. Cameron would have none of it. Why? Continue reading
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Leveson-style inquiry into banks needed, not inter-MPs mud-slinging
They’re being forced to yield inch by inch. First, Barclays’ chairman Agius said he had no intention of resigning; 24 hours later he’d gone. Then the shameless and disgraced chief executive Diamond announced that he was the best person to oversee a change in culture at the bank, having told us a few months ago that Barclays laid great store by being a ‘good citizen’ whilst, as we now know, presiding over the excesses of Barcap, the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal and the latest mis-selling scam. Another 24 hours, he was forced to walk the plank. Continue reading
