This is a speech to the Attorney General in DC regarding the UBS libor manipulation case. http://www.justice.gov/criminal/pr/speeches/2012/crm-speech-121219.html At least we know this guy is not numi: “Make no mistake: for UBS traders, the manipulation of LIBOR was about getting rich. As one broker told a UBS derivatives trader, according to the statement of facts appended to our agreement with the bank, “mate yur getting bloody good at this libor game . . . think of me when yur on yur yacht in monaco wont yu.””
Get a rope
These cases never go to the top. They are always settled or some low level lamb is sacrificed to appease the regulating gods. I’d like to see top level MDs get some jail time along with be responsible for paying the fines first hand since all fees paid by UBS (or anyone else involved) really just hurts the shareholder.
A low level lamb that pushes profits through fraud should be respectfully slaughered. They’re not making $65k a year with a 10% bonus, they’re pushing millions in bonuses and compensation based soley off P&L performance.
Compliance and tough oversight should have been in place to filter out this kind of manipulation, which is why the fines are coming in. Maybe even some corporate suspensions should have levied but a handful of rouge traders shouldn’t create jail time for the top executives.
Agreed he should be punished but someone who is - as stated in the article - holding positions that would net the company profit of 70mm should be visitble to senior heads, no? In meetings, it was opening discussed his ability to persuade brokers to massage the rate, hell he was even given a raise with the funds directly stated to be used for this purpose.
Consequences need to set a precedent and im pretty sure the MD&A law was put in place to ensure these incidents would still fall under their responsbilitlity.
Yeah I agree, senior management should be watching and fired, jailed etc if this type of stuff does go on under their “watch” - if encouraged they should be held responsible as well.
However, there are many levels between senior management and the “top” with the top being the C-suite. The C-suites have been widely cleared out for some of the worst managed companies in the industry, not sure they should be held personally (criminally) responsible for it though.
Wow, what a story.
Why not?
Agreed. Direct knowledge of LIBOR manipulation by management should be criminal. Those Execs above those managers that probably don’t have a clue who this dude is? Not criminal. Maybe fired. Maybe.
I always feel uncomfortable signing the yearly compliance attestation, because I realize the main reason for this is to protect my management in case I do something unethical, whether on purpose or not.
They (personally) can’t catch these types of actions, how can they hold someone responsible for someone else’s actions that are so significantly removed from their supervison? Do we really want the CFO reading through some criminals AIM chats where they talk about defrauding the market by pushing the LIBOR by a couple of basis points? Even worse, spending most their time worrying about their rouge employees burning them in the worst way possible?
Beat up the supervisor and kill the analyst. The c-suite will be fired by the board but IMO probably should not be criminally prosecuted if not involved.
They may not be personally able to catch these actions, but they are or should be responsible for putting together systems to catch them. If these systems are insufficient, then the CFO should be held responsible. Plus holding the top rank responsible is far more likely to result in company-wide change.
So I think it is better to kill the supervisor and beat up the analyst.
I’ll step off this soap box here in a moment but one more comment.
A system is already in place, measuring the effectiveness of the system is subjective (anything <100% = “fail”) and isn’t a good reason for criminally prosecuting top ranked execs.
The documents center on two traders, Adolph and Bittar. Bittar was paid a bonus of as much as 90 million pounds in 2008. Both men have been reviewed by U.K. investigators, but neither has been charged.
wow.
^Who still names people Adolph?
Edit: Last name. Still, I’d change it.
My BMW guy was a brother named Adolph. Oh the irony.
holly molly 90 mil agggghhh white collar crime pays and a half