Since the financial crisis, the shareholders bear the brunt of the costs of bad past conduct of the banks. It is a heavy burden that is in addition to the requirements of placing new money in the that are often institutions with a terrible lack of capital. Around the world have received in fines, a strike that amounts to nearly 350 thousand million dollars (mdd).
Without a doubt, are more beaten than those who ran the largest banks. In general, high-level executives leave well-delivered. It is true, some have lost their jobs or saw their wealth erode due to the loss of value of their units in their own institutions. But the majority avoided the sanctions, clings to his professional credentials and large part of their earnings. In a recent study of 156 criminal actions and collective action against large banks that did the Department of Justice of the united States, only 19 percent of them identified and charged to individual employees, according to an analysis of the Wall Street Journal. Only in one case a member-level executive board of council was held to account in reality.
there is No question that the shareholders should have liability for the conduct of a company, especially one with the economic importance of a large financial institution. People who have both control rights as a participation of the fruits should bear the cost when things go wrong. But it is surprising how, during the post-crisis period almost all the sanctions fell on the investors, and in fact still do. Just look at the buzz that is there, regarding the proposed agreement between the Department of Justice of EU and Deutsche Bank. The majority of the fines banks will be annoying to painful. In this case the Department of Justice was beyond the 14 billion dollars that apparently requires —a staggering four-fifths of the market capitalisation of Deutsche— in reality generated doubts about the ability of the bank to pay.
despite that, the real revelation was not so much the number (which is in any way likely to negotiate for it to arrive to be much lower), but the absence of any executive of the bank at the sheet of charge. One can think that a crime that requires that level of return, at least would lead to the persecution of the staff that did it.
Not so much. In fact is not pointing to a single employee of Deutsche of any crime. And, what is more, it is virtually the same story in a series of agreements involving securities mortgage-backed. Several large institutions of the EU, including JPMorgan, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, came to coughing up 55 billion dollars. However, with only a handful of exceptions, the regulators found the bank employees individual who committed offenses indictable at all the mortgage mess.
why, Then, to point out to the directors if not punish its agents? It seems disproportionate to lean solely on investors in publicly traded companies where the manager enjoys so much of an information advantage as of a considerable freedom of action. The control rights of shareholders, in reality, are more circumscribed in banks than in other companies. Not only the commercial confidentiality cast a veil so impenetrable on its operations; generally, requires a consent for the regulatory before you can fire the executives.
In fact, this advantage of the agent can explain not only why the shareholders pay, but also why they apply fine, and it is so big. The reason arises from an increase in a series of so-called agreements deferred processes and conventions as regulatory subsequent to the financial crisis. These agreements allow the banks to admit to crimes, but something critical is it that allows them not to disclose significant details about their bad behaviors of the past, as well as the identities of those responsible or the magnitude of their violations.
that makes it impossible for the external to get to know if the punishment is appropriate. Prosecutors and regulators presumably fit into this indulgence with their consciences to say that they do not seek to bring down an institution’s systemic. But, in reality, what they have done is to deliver the heads of the banks a way to buy the output of their own firms of any problem, by using the money of other persons (such as shareholders).
To allow banks to reach agreements without admitting totally a bad practice to pass a form of moral hazard. Sanctions should be imposed not only on shareholders, but on the people who acted badly, or that through the connivance or lack of attention allowed it to happen.
authorities claim that no bank is "too big to go to jail". Their continuing dependence only increase the value of the fines and the agreements say otherwise. The difference between words and actions not only prove to be very costly for shareholders, as disclosed to the investors of Deutsche. It gives the impression that you can seize the capital of the bank as if it were a kind of tax, and that the executive may purchase the way to avoid their responsibilities before the law or the investors and customers. Nothing is more detrimental to the recovery of public confidence in banks.
jonathan.ford@ft.com
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