Credit Suisse AG pleaded guilty to helping Americans cheat on their taxes

[Political Junky]

Will they name names?

Credit Suisse Pleads Guilty in Three-Year U.S. Tax Probe - The Washington Post

“Credit Suisse AG pleads guilty, your honor,” Alan Reifenberg, a managing director of the bank, told U.S. District Judge Rebecca Smith this afternoon in Alexandria, Virginia.

The bank will pay $660.5 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. Credit Suisse is said to have reached an agreement to pay $2.5 billion to resolve the case, a person familiar with the matter has said. The penalty includes a $715 million payment to New York’s Department of Financial Services, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The state banking regulator also called for the termination of certain employees and an independent monitor, the person said.
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[waltky]

Credit Suisse fined $2.5 billion after pleading guilty to U.S. tax charge...

Credit Suisse guilty plea has little immediate impact as shares rise
20 May`14 - Credit Suisse saw little immediate impact on Tuesday after it became the largest bank in decades to plead guilty to a U.S. criminal charge and will pay more than $2.5 billion in penalties for helping Americans evade taxes.

The bank's guilty plea resolves its long-running dispute with the United States over the probe and marks a rare criminal indictment for a major financial institution. The Justice Department has not often pursued such convictions for fear they could destabilize large financial firms and wider markets, but lawmakers have recently pressured authorities to show that banks are not "too big to jail." Credit Suisse said it had not seen a material impact in the past few weeks on its business, and that clients faced no legal obstacles from doing business with it despite the guilty plea. But some analysts said clients and counterparties could still pull their business in the coming weeks. "While we expect that this event has been well-flagged and the impact likely to be muted, there is always the small risk of unintended consequences," Citigroup analysts Kinner Lakhani and Nicholas Herman wrote in a note to investors. Credit Suisse shares closed up 0.96 percent on Tuesday.

Switzerland's second-largest bank escaped more dramatic outcomes for its business - the New York state bank regulator decided not to revoke the bank's license in the state. Also, its top management stayed in place and it will not have to hand over specific client data, protected by Swiss secrecy laws, though it will turn over some account information. U.S. prosecutors said Credit Suisse helped clients conceal assets in secret accounts that were not disclosed to U.S. tax authorities, in a conspiracy that spanned decades, and for one of the bank's units, involved practices that began more than a century ago. "This case shows that no financial institution, no matter its size or global reach, is above the law," Attorney General Eric Holder said at a news conference in Washington. "We deeply regret the past misconduct that led to this settlement," Credit Suisse Chief Executive Officer Brady Dougan said in a statement.

Another global bank, BNP Paribas, is expected to submit to a similar plea as it works to resolve a criminal probe into whether it violated U.S. sanctions on Sudan and other countries, people familiar with the matter have said. Credit Suisse will pay the penalties to the U.S. Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Reserve and New York State Department of Financial Services. It had already paid just under $200 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Switzerland's left-wing Social Democrats renewed a call first made last week for Dougan and other executives to step down to allow the bank to make a fresh start. Asked whether he had considered such a move, Dougan, a 24-year veteran of the bank who took over as CEO in 2007, said resignation had "never been a consideration" and he remained committed to the bank.

New York bank regulators discussed replacing Dougan and others, a source familiar with the negotiations said. But in the end, the option was not made a condition of the deal. "We'll see how it all shakes out," Benjamin Lawsky, who heads the New York Department of Financial Services, said on Tuesday after declining to comment on any negotiations about upper management. "In the short term, it's important that there be some stability at the firm as they get through this period." The Swiss government said its main concern was that Credit Suisse was managed well and could move on, and that any change in leadership "wasn't the concern of politics." The bank's chairman, Urs Rohner, told Swiss radio on Tuesday that he and CEO Dougan personally had a clean record, but the same could not be said for the bank's behavior in past decades. Switzerland's regulator effectively cleared the two, saying it had found no evidence that Credit Suisse top management knew of specific misconduct.

APPEASING INVESTORS

 

[Disir]

And you know, they are going to pay the fine. There will be a grand show of "Look, we got 'em" and these clowns are going to turn around do the same thing all over again.

Prison time. That's what they need. Now, for all the fines that have been delivered why isn't this applied to the US debt?

 

[waltky]

Crime don't pay for the biggies...

Exclusive: U.S. proposed $5 billion - 7 billion penalty on Credit Suisse on toxic debt - source
Dec 19 2016 - The U.S. Department of Justice has asked Credit Suisse to pay between $5 billion and $7 billion to settle a probe over its sale of toxic mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, a source with knowledge of the matter said, but the bank has resisted settling for that amount.

The size of the suggested settlement indicates that the cost to the bank may be higher than analysts had expected and explains why Credit Suisse management, according to a second source, has been seeking a smaller penalty. "Credit Suisse is confident of reaching a better solution," said the second person. Should talks break down, U.S. legal authorities could sue the bank, prolonging the uncertainty. In a sign that negotiations may be reaching their final stages, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch last week met with Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam, another person familiar with the matter said. A potential resolution could come as early as this week. The sources did not want to be identified because the negotiations are not public. Credit Suisse and the Department of Justice declined to comment.

The penalty stems from a 2012 initiative launched by U.S. President Barack Obama to hold banks accountable for selling mortgage debt while misleading investors about the risks, a practice that helped cause the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. The penalties, which for U.S. banks reached $46 billion, are set to deliver another setback to European lenders, many of which remain fragile, with scant capital, in the wake of the financial crash. After record settlements were reached with U.S. banks such as Bank of America and JPMorgan, the focus has turned to Europe's Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse, Barclays, UBS and HSBC. News in September that the Justice Department made an initial demand of Deutsche of $14 billion to settle its case sent the German lender's stock plummeting and raised fears Credit Suisse could also face a stiffer penalty.

The Credit Suisse logo is seen at the headquarters in downtown Milan, Italy​

Just prior to Deutsche confirming that the Department of Justice was seeking $14 billion, JP Morgan analysts estimated Credit Suisse's fine at around $2 billion. Deutsche Bank could this week agree its penalty over the sale of toxic mortgage debt, one person with direct knowledge of the matter said on Monday. The bank has said it expects to pay materially less than $14 billion. Credit Suisse's litigation provisions at the end of 2015 totalled 1.605 billion Swiss francs ($1.56 billion). In November, the bank said it had upped litigation provisions by 357 million francs, mainly in connection with mortgage-related matters.

In addition to the Justice Department probe, Credit Suisse is defending itself against lawsuits by the New York and New Jersey attorneys general over similar claims involving billions of dollars of investor losses. If Credit Suisse reaches a settlement with federal authorities, it will likely settle with the states as well. A New York attorney general spokeswoman declined to comment, and New Jersey did not immediately return a call for comment. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, which means key government players involved in the negotiations would change, complicating the banks' efforts to reach settlements.

Exclusive: U.S. proposed $5 billion - 7 billion penalty on Credit Suisse on toxic debt - source

See also:

U.S. charges Platinum Partners execs with $1 billion fraud
Dec 19 2016 - Top executives of New York-based hedge fund manager Platinum Partners were arrested on Monday and charged with running a $1 billion fraud that federal prosecutors said became "like a Ponzi scheme" as its largest investments lost much of their value.

Led by Mark Nordlicht, Platinum was known for years for producing exceptionally high returns -- about 17 percent annually in its largest fund -- by taking an unusually aggressive approach to investing and fund management, as detailed by a Reuters Special Report in April. Nordlicht, Platinum's founding partner and chief investment officer, was arrested at his home in New Rochelle, New York. Federal prosecutors accused him and six others of participating in a pair of schemes to defraud investors. "The charges ... highlight the brazenness and the breadth of the defendants' lies and deceit," Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers told reporters.

Platinum Partners founder Mark Nordlicht, wearing a hoodie, exits federal court in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.​

Capers added that the case was one of the largest and "most brazen" investment frauds ever and Platinum was ultimately exposed to have "no more value than a tarnished piece of cheap metal." The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced parallel charges Monday against the same executives and two Platinum entities for similar civil fraud charges. A 48-page criminal indictment said since 2012, Nordlicht and four other defendants defrauded investors by overvaluing illiquid assets held by its flagship Platinum Partners Value Arbitrage funds, mostly troubled energy-related investments.

This caused a "severe liquidity crisis" that Platinum at first tried to remedy through high-interest loans between its funds before selectively paying some investors ahead of others, the indictment said. "So to some extent, there is a Ponzi-esque aspect to this scheme," Capers said.

FLEEING TO ISRAEL