On May 20, five of the biggest banks in the world pleaded guilty to charges of interest rate manipulation and agreed to pay $2.8 billion in fines for the felonies they committed. Two of the banks, J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, are U.S.-based. Each has a long rap sheet of recent settlements for their corporate misdeeds, and each has paid large fines and settlements -- nearly $35 billion in the case of JP Morgan Chase. But otherwise, these businesses go on with no reduction of rights or privileges and with no decision makers being sent to prison.
A criminal double standard: individuals go to jail for illegal acts, but corporations get probation and business as usual.
In the United States, when individuals are convicted of felonies, they lose many rights and are often jailed. Forty-eight states ban felons from voting while they are in prison, and 11 states may ban felons from voting for the rest of their lives, depending on the nature of their crimes. Convicted felons also have a hard time getting jobs, particularly in occupations requiring high levels of trust - like banking.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) regulations explicitly bar banks the agency insures from hiring or associating with "any person who has been convicted of any criminal offense involving dishonesty or breach of trust or money laundering, or has agreed to enter a pre-trial diversion or similar program in connection with a prosecution for such offense."
So, if you commit fraud by writing a bad check and get convicted, a bank can't hire you, but if you are a bank and have committed fraud on a massive scale, the FDIC will continue to insure your deposits.
While some bank lawyers were sitting across the table from Justice Department attorneys hashing out the details of last month's plea deal and settlements, other bank employees and contractors were busy lobbying the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Department of Labor for waivers to allow them continued access to special perks and privileges. Even after their organizations were found to have deliberately manipulated financial rules, they argued for expedited review of corporate stock offerings and the ability to continue to manage pension funds.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katherine-mcfate/time-for-three-strikes-an_b_7596946.html
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