A similar conclusion can be drawn from comparing US and UK fines; the US imposes far higher penalties than the UK. The LIBOR scandal provides a direct comparison in fines to Barclays. The FSA fined Barclays £59.5 million, the highest fine ever given. This is made to look small by the $200 million and $160 million fines imposed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice respectively. Despite the US fines were still only to the value of 3.933% of Barclays 2011 profits. These fines are not the biggest this year; HSBC recently received a $1.9 billion fine for failing in its money laundering controls. This fine is a lot more significant than any UK fine, 8.687% of 2011 profits, but still HSBC’s unlikely to really impact a Bank which made $21.872 billion last year. International Intervention Presently there are no international organisations with the power to undertake enforcement actions against banks; this could soon be to change if the states using the Euro currency agree to instil powers in the European Central Bank. There are some international organisations which produce recommendations for states to comply with, including the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Without any sanctioning powers the guidance these bodies can provide is only compliance-based. The power of these recommendations depends on their implementation by sovereign states; the UK is a member of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as well as a FATF. FATF provides recommendations in laundering, terrorist financing and combating “money It produces periodic reports other related threats to the international financial system.” […] assessing the compliance of member states; it has found the UK to be largely compliant. The UK was encouraged to become fully compliant but there are no consequences for not doing so. A discussion classifying the UK as a or would ‘political citizen’ ‘amoral calculator’
A similar conclusion can be drawn from comparing US and UK fines; the US imposes far higher penalties than the UK. The LIBOR scandal provides a direct comparison in fines to Barclays. The FSA fined Barclays £59.5 million, the highest fine ever given. This is made to look small by the $200 million and $160 million fines imposed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice respectively. Despite the US fines were still only to the value of 3.933% of Barclays 2011 profits. These fines are not the biggest this year; HSBC recently received a $1.9 billion fine for failing in its money laundering controls. This fine is a lot more significant than any UK fine, 8.687% of HSBC’s 2011 profits, but still unlikely to really impact a Bank which made $21.872 billion last year. International Intervention Presently there are no international organisations with the power to undertake enforcement actions against banks; this could soon be to change if the states using the Euro currency agree to instil powers in the European Central Bank. There are some international organisations which produce recommendations for states to comply with, including the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Without any sanctioning powers the guidance these bodies can provide is only compliance-based. The power of these recommendations depends on their implementation by sovereign states; the UK is a member of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as well as a FATF. FATF provides recommendations in combating “money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to […] the international financial system.” It produces periodic reports assessing the compliance of member states; it has found the UK to be largely compliant. The UK was encouraged to become fully compliant but there are no consequences for not doing so. A discussion classifying the UK as a ‘political citizen’ or ‘amoral calculator’ would
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