Corporate Criminal Fines Hit A Record High

Global banks UBS and HSBC recently agreed to $1 billion fines for, respectively, rigging a key interest rate and laundering money for drug cartels and terrorists. The list of bank fraud this year, in fact, is quite extensive. And its not only banks that have been forced to pay up. Money paid by corporations for criminal activity goes into a government fund, and, as Reuters’ Alison Frankel noted, “In the fund’s most recent fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, it took in a record $2.7 billion.”