What's keeping megabank execs out of jail? Fear.

[Pyperkub]

Wells Fargo's Ethically Challenged workforce at it again:

Wells Fargo & Co. fired more than 100 employees suspected of improperly collecting coronavirus relief funds, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

The firm determined that the staffers defrauded the Small Business Administration “by making false representations in applying for coronavirus relief funds for themselves,” according to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg. The review focused on employees who tapped the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, a key part of the government’s effort to prop up businesses during the pandemic.

[LawBeefaroni]

Goldman Sachs, $2B fine, yada yada.


Looking like the real reason Blankfein left..

[$iljanus]

Goldman Sachs, $2B fine, yada yada.


Looking like the real reason Blankfein left..

I'm sure they can find some of that money in some executive office sofa cushions.

[malchior]

Goldman Sachs, $2B fine, yada yada.


Looking like the real reason Blankfein left..

Sure but the current CEO ran the group implicated. *Sigh*. Anyway, it's a big set of fines and far exceeded what they made so that's about as much "justice" as they'll see.

[LawBeefaroni]

Goldman Sachs, $2B fine, yada yada.


Looking like the real reason Blankfein left..

Sure but the current CEO ran the group implicated. *Sigh*. Anyway, it's a big set of fines and far exceeded what they made so that's about as much "justice" as they'll see.

They got paid $600M but there's still a lot of the $6.5B unaccounted for. How much of that drove more business to GS? I'm willing to bet that they benefitted $2B+. But yeah, all things considered this is a bit more than the usual slap on the wrist. Maybe knuckle charlie horse.

[Isgrimnur]

GS

2019 Net Income = 8.47B

[Isgrimnur]

CNBC

JPMorgan Chase is paying $200 million in fines to two U.S. banking regulators to settle charges that its Wall Street division allowed employees to use WhatsApp and other platforms to circumvent federal record-keeping laws.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday that JPMorgan Securities agreed to pay $125 million after admitting to “widespread” record-keeping failures in recent years. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also said Friday that it had fined the bank $75 million for allowing unapproved communications since at least 2015.

SEC officials who spoke to reporters Thursday evening said JPMorgan’s failure to preserve those offline conversations violated federal securities law and left the regulator blind to exchanges between the bank and its clients.

Federal law requires financial firms to keep meticulous records of electronic messages between brokers and clients so regulators can make sure those firms aren’t skirting anti-fraud or antitrust laws.
...
At JPMorgan, the practice of going offline to communicate was firm-wide, and even the managers and senior personnel responsible for compliance used their personal devices to communicate sensitive business matters, the SEC said.

[malchior]

$200M. I bet they totally didn't make wau more than that in dirty deals in the last 6 years.

[LawBeefaroni]

$200M. I bet they totally didn't make wau more than that in dirty deals in the last 6 years.

Its just a fraud tax. Never to they come close to being a significant punishment or deterrent.

The Golden Age of Fraud.

[LordMortis]

CNBC this morning WRT Credit Suisse "restructure":

"You need a lot of money to lay off bankers"



What they were talking about:

https://www.reuters.com/business/financ ... 022-10-03/

[Isgrimnur]

CNBC

agreed to a $3.7 billion settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over customer abuses tied to checking accounts, mortgages and auto loans, with some of the misconduct happening as recently as this year.

The company was ordered to pay a record $1.7 billion civil penalty and more than $2 billion to customers with 16 million accounts, the CFPB said in a statement. The San Francisco-based bank said in a separate statement that many of the “required actions” tied to the settlement were already completed.

“The bank’s illegal conduct led to billions of dollars in financial harm to its customers and, for thousands of customers, the loss of their vehicles and homes,” the agency said in its release. “Consumers were illegally assessed fees and interest charges on auto and mortgage loans, had their cars wrongly repossessed, and had payments to auto and mortgage loans misapplied by the bank.”

[$iljanus]

CNBC

agreed to a $3.7 billion settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over customer abuses tied to checking accounts, mortgages and auto loans, with some of the misconduct happening as recently as this year.

The company was ordered to pay a record $1.7 billion civil penalty and more than $2 billion to customers with 16 million accounts, the CFPB said in a statement. The San Francisco-based bank said in a separate statement that many of the “required actions” tied to the settlement were already completed.

“The bank’s illegal conduct led to billions of dollars in financial harm to its customers and, for thousands of customers, the loss of their vehicles and homes,” the agency said in its release. “Consumers were illegally assessed fees and interest charges on auto and mortgage loans, had their cars wrongly repossessed, and had payments to auto and mortgage loans misapplied by the bank.”

”Jeeves, please fetch the piggy bank from the drawing room and send it to the constabulary!” “Very good sir.”

I’m not stressing too much about the hit to their bottom line…

Furthermore, the bank said fourth-quarter expenses would include a $3.5 billion operating loss, or $2.8 billion after taxes, from the incremental costs of the CFPB civil penalty and customer remediation efforts, as well as other legal matters. The bank is still expected to post an overall profit when it reports in mid-January, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The large fourth-quarter expense indicates that Wells Fargo is setting aside funds for future settlements, Jefferies analyst Ken Usdin said Tuesday in a note.

[Isgrimnur]

[LawBeefaroni]

CNBC

agreed to a $3.7 billion settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over customer abuses tied to checking accounts, mortgages and auto loans, with some of the misconduct happening as recently as this year.

The company was ordered to pay a record $1.7 billion civil penalty and more than $2 billion to customers with 16 million accounts, the CFPB said in a statement. The San Francisco-based bank said in a separate statement that many of the “required actions” tied to the settlement were already completed.

“The bank’s illegal conduct led to billions of dollars in financial harm to its customers and, for thousands of customers, the loss of their vehicles and homes,” the agency said in its release. “Consumers were illegally assessed fees and interest charges on auto and mortgage loans, had their cars wrongly repossessed, and had payments to auto and mortgage loans misapplied by the bank.”

”Jeeves, please fetch the piggy bank from the drawing room and send it to the constabulary!” “Very good sir.”

I’m not stressing too much about the hit to their bottom line…

It would only take $232 in profit for each of the 16M accounts to cover the fine. Meanwhile I'm sure the hit to consumers was way over $232 per account.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is Orwell for Financial Services Protection Bureau.

[Pyperkub]

Heh:

https://home.social/@grahamsleight/109546373806591180

Why do we call them “central banks” and not “apex creditors”?

[malchior]

Furthermore, the bank said fourth-quarter expenses would include a $3.5 billion operating loss, or $2.8 billion after taxes, from the incremental costs of the CFPB civil penalty and customer remediation efforts, as well as other legal matters. The bank is still expected to post an overall profit when it reports in mid-January, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Am I interpreting it right that the government pitches in on their settlement in the form of a tax break on the loss?

[coopasonic]

Furthermore, the bank said fourth-quarter expenses would include a $3.5 billion operating loss, or $2.8 billion after taxes, from the incremental costs of the CFPB civil penalty and customer remediation efforts, as well as other legal matters. The bank is still expected to post an overall profit when it reports in mid-January, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Am I interpreting it right that the government pitches in on their settlement in the form of a tax break on the loss?

The settlement is a loss which offsets some gain so overall tax burden is reduced as a result of the reduced income.

[malchior]

Furthermore, the bank said fourth-quarter expenses would include a $3.5 billion operating loss, or $2.8 billion after taxes, from the incremental costs of the CFPB civil penalty and customer remediation efforts, as well as other legal matters. The bank is still expected to post an overall profit when it reports in mid-January, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Am I interpreting it right that the government pitches in on their settlement in the form of a tax break on the loss?

The settlement is a loss which offsets some gain so overall tax burden is reduced as a result of the reduced income.

Right. I'm suggesting maybe fines shouldn't be treated this way considering it essentially means the government is de facto pitching in for the fine then. At least that is the way Republicans spin the other side of the coin when they say cut the SALT tax.

[Isgrimnur]

Banks hit with $549 million in fines for use of Signal, WhatsApp to evade regulators’ reach

U.S. regulators on Tuesday announced a combined $549 million in penalties against Wells Fargo
and a raft of smaller or non-U.S. firms that failed to maintain electronic records of employee communications.

The Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed charges and $289 million in fines against 11 firms for “widespread and longstanding failures” in record-keeping, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission also said it fined four banks a total of $260 million for failing to maintain records required by the agency.

It was regulators’ latest effort to stamp out the pervasive use of secure messaging apps like Signal, Meta’s WhatsApp or Apple’s iMessage by Wall Street employees and managers. Starting in late 2021, the watchdogs secured settlements with bigger players including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Fines related to the issue total more than $2 billion, according to the SEC and CFTC.
...
Wells Fargo, the fourth-biggest U.S. bank by assets and a relatively small player on Wall Street, racked up the most fines on Tuesday, with $200 million in penalties.

[malchior]

I'm curious how they documented these acts. When I was a security manager for an energy trading operation this was a constant problem. If we blocked these apps on their endpoints, they went to phones, heck one time we caught a guy using a burner to make trades. This is a very hard problem to stamp out.

[GreenGoo]

I'm pretty sure Signal allows you to save/backup logs.

Of course if the users are *trying* not to have their comms available, good luck.

[malchior]

That's the problem. The traders are sometimes total villains and as this action shows us the problem is rampant and widespread.

[LawBeefaroni]

They already nailed the big banks for this a few years ago. JPM, Goldman, etc. It's pretty pervasive.

[malchior]

It's baked into the culture. They will cheat unless that culture is changed. The banks have no interest to change the culture so this is just cost of doing business to them. As long as Congress is owned lock, stock, and barrel by the banks this is about as far the government will probably ever go - the equivalent of a speeding ticket to them.

[stessier]

For anyone else reading along, I think LawBeef meant "big banks". Took me a while to puzzle out if there was some special form of bank I had not heard of.

[LawBeefaroni]

For anyone else reading along, I think LawBeef meant "big banks". Took me a while to puzzle out if there was some special form of bank I had not heard of.

Phew, yes. Stupid phone keyboard.

[Isgrimnur]

For anyone else reading along, I think LawBeef meant "big banks". Took me a while to puzzle out if there was some special form of bank I had not heard of.

Phew, yes. Stupid phone keyboard.

If only that had been quoted from the article.