Swiss Bank UBS will plead guilty to wire fraud and pay $545 million for manipulating the financial market, the Associated Press reported.
UBS said earlier today that the deal also grants the bank “conditional immunity from prosecution in a Department of Justice probe on the manipulation of foreign exchange rates.” It will also pay fines of $342 million to the Federal Reserve and $203 million to the DOJ for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR).
The bank said that “the conduct of a small number of employees was unacceptable and we have taken appropriate disciplinary actions.”
What the bank really meant, though, was that the fact employees got caught was unacceptable.
Since these financial giants know that they will face no real consequences short of a fine, they can basically continue in these illegal and unethical practices scott-free. That fine is merely a drop in the bucket for big banks like UBS.
New Attorney General Loretta Lynch has already fallen in line with her predecessor Eric Holder’s style of punishment and, of course, none of those employees will see any jail time — despite the damage they caused to the global economy.
If these banking executives didn’t make tens of millions of dollars a year, they would already be in jail for their crimes. The average American could rob a bank and make off with under $1000 and spend decades in prison. Apparently being unfathomably wealthy really does, sadly, make someone too big to jail.
