STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 31 May 2013

[Demeter]

19. HSBC will pay $1.9 billion for money laundering

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/12/11/hsbc-laundering-probe/1760351/

British banking giant HSBC agreed to pay a record $1.92 billion settlement Tuesday after a broad investigation by U.S. federal and state authorities found the bank violated federal laws by laundering money from Mexican drug trafficking and processing banned transactions on behalf of Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma .

The settlement, a combination of forfeitures and civil penalties, shows the London-headquartered financial powerhouse for years deliberately channeled hundreds of millions of dollars of the prohibited transactions through its U.S. arm.

"HSBC is being held accountable for stunning failures of oversight — and worse — that led the bank to permit narcotics traffickers and others to launder millions of dollars through HSBC subsidiaries, and to facilitate hundreds of millions more in transactions with sanctioned countries," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in announcing the largest settlement of its kind.

"The record of dysfunction that prevailed at HSBC for many years was astonishing," said Breuer.

AND NOW, CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE DYSFUNCTION THAT PREVAILS AT THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT?