ON NOV. 13, THE UNITED KINGDOM’S SERIOUS FRAUD OFFICE (SFO) ANNOUNCED IT WAS CHARGING 10 INDIVIDUAL BANKERS, WORKING FOR TWO SEPARATE BANKS, DEUTSCHE BANK AND BARCLAYS, WITH FRAUD OVER THEIR RIGGING OF THE EURIBOR RATES. THE LATEST ANNOUNCEMENT SHINES THE SPOTLIGHT ONCE AGAIN ON THE SCANDALS AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR THAT HAVE COME TO DEFINE THE WORLD OF GLOBAL BANKING.
To date, only a handful of the world’s largest banks have been repeatedly investigated, charged, fined or settled in relation to a succession of large financial scams, starting with mortgage fraud and the Libor scandal in 2012, the Euribor scandal and the Forex (foreign exchange) rate rigging. At the heart of these scandals, which involve the manipulation of interest rates on trillions of dollars in transactions, lie a handful of banks that collectively form a cartel in control of global financial markets – and the source of worldwide economic and financial crises.