Every so often I like to raise my head up and look around my surroundings. It's always interesting what I find, sometimes inspiring and causing me to hope. Other times, not so much. Here's one of those 'not so much' moments.
According to this article, here are a list of the fines this bank has paid since December 2008.
December 11, 2008: SEC forces [Mystery Bank] and UBS to buy back $30 billion in auction rate securities that were improperly sold to investors through misleading information. Note: I assigned half of this amount or $15 billion as this bank's fine.
February 11, 2009: [Mystery Bank] agrees to settle lawsuit brought by WorldCom investors for $2.65 billion.
July 29, 2010:SEC settles with [Mystery Bank] for $75 million over its misleading statements to investors that it had reduced its exposure to subprime mortgages to $13 billion when in fact the exposure was over $50 billion.
October 19, 2011:SEC agrees to settle with [Mystery Bank] for $285 million over claims it misled investors in a $1 billion financial product. [Mystery Bank] had selected approximately half the assets and was betting they would decline in value.
February 9, 2012: [Mystery Bank] agrees to pay $2.2 billion as its portion of the nationwide settlement of bank foreclosure fraud.
August 29, 2012: [Mystery Bank] agrees to settle a class action lawsuit for $590 million over claims it withheld from shareholders’ knowledge that it had far greater exposure to subprime debt than it was reporting.
July 1, 2013: [Mystery Bank] agrees to pay Fannie Mae $968 million for selling it toxic mortgage loans.
September 25, 2013: [Mystery Bank] agrees to pay Freddie Mac $395 million to settle claims it sold it toxic mortgages.
December 4, 2013: [Mystery Bank] admits to participating in the Yen Libor financial derivatives cartel to the European Commission and accepts a fine of $95 million.
July 14, 2014:The U.S. Department of Justice announces a $7 billion settlement with [Mystery Bank] for selling toxic mortgages to investors. Attorney General Eric Holder called the bank’s conduct “egregious,” adding, “As a result of their assurances that toxic financial products were sound, [Mystery Bank] was able to expand its market share and increase profits.”
November 2014: [Mystery Bank] pays more than $1 billion to settle civil allegations with regulators that it manipulated foreign currency markets. Other global banks settled at the same time.
May 20, 2015: [Mystery Subsidiary], a unit of [Mystery Bank] becomes an admitted felon by pleading guilty to a felony charge in the matter of rigging foreign currency trading, paying a fine of $925 million to the Justice Department and $342 million to the Federal Reserve for a total of $1.267 billion.via wallstreetonparade.com
That totals $31.5 billion.
As this is sort of a game, just like it's sort of a game the SEC plays with this bank, I'll entice you with But, wait there's more!
This bank received the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history: $45 billion in equity infusions, over $300 billion in asset guarantees, and over $2 trillion in low-cost loans from the Federal Reserve. link
Reading the above sentence again today brings to mind words like: criminal enterprise, global money-laundering operation, and 'how-the-hell-do-they-do-it.' What words come to your mind?
But back to the game ... Fined over $31.5 billion in 6.5 years and receiving oh, let's round it off to $2.4 trillion in taxpayer, yours and mine, bailout funds ... can you name this bank?
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