Wall Street Journal (July 17)
“Germany has a patchy record in fighting corporate crime. Volkswagen AG ’s giant emissions-cheating scandal was uncovered by California. The U.S. has imposed more money-laundering fines on troubled German lender Deutsche Bank AG than Germany has. BaFin’s decadelong blind spot for Wirecard now raises questions about the country’s ability to enforce securities rules that protect investors.”
Tags: BaFin, Blind spot, California, Corporate crime, Deutsche Bank, Emissions, Enforce, Fines, Germany, Investors, Money laundering, Patchy record, Scandal, Securities rules, U.S., Volkswagen, Wirecard
Wall Street Journal (June 5)
For North Korea’s “Kim Jong Un and the Chinese banks that sustain his regime, life is suddenly more complicated.” The U.S. designated “the entire country a ‘primary money-laundering concern.’ This is the biggest gun in the arsenal of financial sanctions. If enforced, it will make banks world-wide choose between doing business with North Korea and maintaining access to U.S. dollars.” Welcoming the more stringent designation, the Wall Street Journal writes, “It’s about time.”
Tags: Banks, China, Financial sanctions, Kim Jong Un, Money laundering, North Korea, U.S.
Financial Times (July 12)
“The banking sector hardly needs another scandal.” In just two weeks, Barclays has been sanctioned for market fixing Libor submissions, the Royal Bank of Scotland had a system failure which hindered customer account access, and now HSBC is being hauled in front of Congress for money laundering. “With the world’s biggest banks entangled in investigations, it is foolish to think that the industry, already scraping the bottom of the barrel of public goodwill, has put the worst behind it.”
