Financial Transparency Coalition

HSBC Bank USA N.A. and HSBC Bank Holdings plc, its parent company, agreed to forfeiture and penalties of a little more than $1.9 billion dollars for systemic and willful violations of U.S. anti-money laundering and foreign sanctions laws. This penalty is making headlines in the press as the largest fine ever imposed on a bank, but we note that not one person is being prosecuted in this case. $1.9 billion may sounds like a lot, but does the penalty fit the crime? We have decided that you should be able to make an informed judgment about that...

Global Financial Integrity applauds Mr. Khuzami’s plan to reorganize the enforcement arm of the SEC and maximize the agencies powers in an effort to enforce laws already on the books that require corporations to be accountable for their illegal actions on the national and international level. The SEC has not provided additional detail on the five specialized investigative groups, but we hope that trade mispricing is included in the scope of the investigative group responsible for market abuses by big traders. Approximately 60% of global trade is now conducted within subsidiaries of the same multi-national corporation -...

Our friend Anthony Travers, chairman of the Cayman Islands Financial Services Association, wrote an opinion piece for the conservative Washington Times yesterday in which he claims that "it is unfair to mischaracterize Cayman as a 'tax haven' - a phrase that implies secrecy and wrongdoing - as President Obama and others have done recently." Now language like this is to be expected from Mr. Travers - he has been making similar statements for months. However the surprising part of the article is what follows:

To avoid any further confusion on this issue, we...