Reuters Runs Interference for Elite Corruption, Scrubs Article That Shows How Banks Get Out of Jail Free

By Yves Smith
nakedcapitalism.com

Marcy Wheeler put up a useful post yesterday morning, based on a Reuters article describing the efforts of Standard Chartered to combat the damage done by its making illegal transfers on behalf of Iranian banks.
Marcy picked up on how the article revealed the techniques used by big banks to escape suffering meaningful consequences of their misdeeds:

Reuters lays out the steps that SCB took that normally should be enough to minimize any consequences for violating Iran sanctions. First, you hire Sullivan and Cromwell and act contrite. Then, you pay a consultant to conduct a review and claim the violations involved just $14 billion million in transactions as opposed to $250 billion shown in your bank records.

As part of a review the bank sought to give to regulators, Standard Chartered hired Promontory Financial Group, a Washington D.C. consulting firm run by Eugene Ludwig, who served as U.S. Comptroller of the Currency from 1993-98. Promontory was hired to review Standard Chartered’s transactions tied to Iran. The bank’s review ultimately settled on the figure of less than $14 million for improper transactions.

Then you bury all the embarrassing details showing willful flouting of the rules, so the proles don’t learn how craven banks really are.
I suspect, for the reasons laid out here, that OFAC will still find a way to give SCB a nice cushy settlement. But Lawsky has revealed what really goes on behind these settlements: the coziness, the misrepresentations, the complicity in hiding the true face of banking.

Now I decided to go have a look myself. Being on the vampire shift, I didn’t go looking until mid afternoon. And guess what, the story that was now at that URL was not the same story. Yes, there was a story on Standard Chartered. But the version that Marcy worked from was apparently the original, released at 00:28 AM, titled “U.S. regulators irate at NY action against StanChart.” I’ve loaded that version in a Word and put it up at ScribD, and am embedding it below. It’s 1766 words. Be sure to download it if you are interested in this topic.
Original Reuters 8/8/12 Standard Chartered Story



Original Reuters 8/8/12 Standard Chartered Story read the rest: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/reuters-runs-interference-for-elite-corruption-scrubs-article-that-shows-how-banks-get-out-of-jail-free.html