"Deutsche Bank to pay $2.5 billion fine to settle rate-rigging case" by Jack Ewing New York Times April 24, 2015
FRANKFURT — Deutsche Bank will pay a $2.5 billion penalty to US and British authorities to settle accusations that it helped manipulate the benchmarks used to set interest rates on trillions of dollars in mortgages, student loans, credit cards, and other debt, officials said Thursday.
I haven't said much about that in a while, but it's the infamous LIBOR scandal that banks made billions off while $crewing the rest of us.
The penalty is by far the largest in a multiyear investigation into whether large banks conspired to set the price of debt in ways that would be profitable for them.
Until Thursday, the largest fine was the $1.5 billion that the Swiss bank UBS agreed to pay in 2012.
The size of the fine reflected Deutsche Bank’s large share of the market for derivatives and other financial instruments tied to the rates. Authorities denounced the bank, Germany’s biggest financial institution and one of the last European banks with a major Wall Street presence, for what they said was lax oversight of traders and employees involved in setting rates, as well as a failure to respond to warning signs of misconduct. They also said the bank misled investigators and dragged its feet in providing information.
Excerpts from electronic messages showed traders from Deutsche Bank and other investment banks addressing each other as “dude,” “mate,” and “amigo” as they colluded to help their own trading positions at the expense of millions of borrowers.
According to authorities, the fixing of interest rates by Deutsche Bank employees in London, Frankfurt, New York, and Tokyo from 2005 to 2011 was deliberate, and the employees were aware that it was wrong.
And no one is going to jail.
“One division at Deutsche Bank had a culture of generating profits without proper regard to the integrity of the market,” Georgina Philippou, acting director of enforcement and market oversight at the Financial Conduct Authority in Britain, said in a statement. “This wasn’t limited to a few individuals but, on certain desks, it appeared deeply ingrained.”
We call it the $y$tem, and that's how it works. To tamper with it would produce the destruction of civilization and the world itself.
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From the $2.5 billion fine, New York’s financial services department will receive $600 million, the CFTC $800 million, and the Justice Department $775 million. The Financial Conduct Authority of Britain will receive 227 million pounds ($340 million).
It's called a kickback.
It is unclear whether authorities will pursue settlements with other institutions. Three US banks that have come under scrutiny in the investigation of rigged interest rates — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America — might face actions from regulators. But the breadth of the suspected wrongdoing may not give rise to criminal cases.
Never does when it comes to the lotting bankers!
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Related:
"Deutsche Bank’s net profit fell to 559 million euros ($610 million) in the first quarter as legal penalties ate into stronger revenues. Profits were down from 1.1 billion euros a year earlier. On Sunday, the bank said revenue rose by 24 percent from a year earlier, to 10.4 billion euros, on income from stock and bond trading and favorable shifts in currency exchange rates. Last week, the bank said it had agreed to pay $2.175 billion to the US Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and New York State to settle investigations into its role in rigging key interest rate benchmarks. It also agreed to pay $344.7 million to Britain."
Didn't want you to miss that.
UPDATE: Deutsche Bank’s co-CEOs will step down
