Two of the largest banks in the world, which reap massive explicit and implicit subsidies from the government, were criminal enterprises for at least a decade. Each engaged in violations that were vastly larger than Liberty Reserve.

The Standard Chartered agreement with the Department of Justice actually anticipates dismissals of its crime. It states that if Standard Chartered denies its crimes, it must issue a new statement within five days after the government orders it.

BUENOS AIRES, March 18 (Reuters) - Argentina's tax agency said on Monday it has uncovered 392 million pesos ($77 million) in fraudul...

LONDON — The HSBC banking group saw its net profits drop nearly 17 percent in 2012, as it counted the cost of a hefty U.S. fine it paid to settl...

John Adams famously sought to create "a government of laws and not of men." Sadly, I suspect John Adams would be disappointed in the nation today.

* Structure was "not fit for purpose" in modern world -CEO * Says structural change was biggest in HSBC's history ...

* Drug cartels used complex scheme to launder money * Smuggled dollars to Mexico, put them in HSBC accounts ...

ATLANTA -- Three Atlanta-area counties have filed a lawsuit claiming that British bank HSBC cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in extra expense...

With the help of three ghosts, Scrooge finally reached redemption by learning to give to others. As events of the past two weeks have shown, modern bankers have their own ghosts to face: federal prosecutors.

It was just an unfortunate coincidence that the reports were almost juxtaposed -- the reports of the punishment given Stephanie George and that given HSBC and UBS. Stephanie, of course, was not the first.

The HSBC money-laundering settlement demonstrates conclusively that the Dodd-Frank reforms have not ended so-called "Too-Big-to-Fail" problem. The outrage about HSBC getting off so lightly has been too narrowly focused.

HSBC marks the triumph of crony capitalism in the U.S. and the U.K. Fraudulent SDIs have no permanent alliances or ideology -- only permanent interests in being above the law and free of "free" market competition.

As part of the HSBC settlement, did Obama and Cameron's officials require HSBC to blow the whistle on tax frauds? Did they require HSBC to provide them with a full intelligence briefing on how the networks of tax evasion and tax havens function?

Thinking of robbing a bank? Bad idea. You're more likely to get away with a crime working from the inside. That's Matt Taibbi's take anyway. In...

There is no indication that the regulators, prosecutors or government leaders considered doing the right thing at HSBC. That is how destructive making implicit assumptions and adopting the pro-crony framing of issues is in the real world.

One of the great things about being too big to fail is that you're also too big to jail, apparently. So saith the Obama administration, via the New...