The Department of Justice has shied away in recent years from chasing down white-collar crime, relying instead on “deferred prosecution agreements,” which essentially have allowed companies, financial institutions especially, to investigate and report their own wrongdoing.
Companies are encouraged to look into and correct their own problems, and after promising Big Brother never to do it again, often avoid litigation altogether. —BF
The New York Times:
Federal prosecutors officially adopted new guidelines about charging corporations with crimes — a softer approach that, longtime white-collar lawyers and former federal prosecutors say, helps explain the dearth of criminal cases despite a raft of inquiries into the financial crisis.
Though little noticed outside legal circles, the guidelines were welcomed by firms representing banks. The Justice Department’s directive, involving a process known as deferred prosecutions, signaled “an important step away from the more aggressive prosecutorial practices seen in some cases under their predecessors,” Sullivan & Cromwell, a prominent Wall Street law firm, told clients in a memo that September.
The guidelines left open a possibility other than guilty or not guilty, giving leniency often if companies investigated and reported their own wrongdoing. In return, the government could enter into agreements to delay or cancel the prosecution if the companies promised to change their behavior.
But this approach, critics maintain, runs the risk of letting companies off too easily.
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By question, July 9, 2011 at 3:18 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Oh puh-leeze. Self-policing has always been an effective method among crooks, right? Do we need more evidence that this administration is the latest in a long line of politicians bought by corporations & raking in money faster than ever before? July 14 is Bastille Day, America.
By A. Benway, July 9, 2011 at 9:03 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Well, a “deferred prosecution agreement” is a dust-off of an time-tested method once well known to all Americans. Back in the day it was, however, known by another name - the pay-off.
Both names tend to obscure the truth - it’s a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.
‘But look at who’s still running the economy: Bernanke. Geithner. Summers. Goldman Sachs. J.P. Morgan Chase. We’ve had the same establishment in charge since at least 1987, when Paul Volcker stood down as Fed chairman. Change? What “change”?’
When is the old poly-humped camel that the US populace has become going to have the last leaden straw dumped on it’s back? The one that breaks it’s spine and forces it to it’s knees, with it’s snout in the dirt, so that it can no longer breathe?
Will this ‘Stay Out Of Jail Free’ card for the rich and corporate officers be the final straw? Or will we wait until ‘our’ representatives pass a law that declares all citizens earning less than $200K/year and/or with a net worth under $2M to be ‘disposable’, and thus subject to containment in the new Xe ‘Freedom Camps’, until their number is drawn?
The number that all ‘disposables’ are assigned which determines, by lottery, the order in which they will be incinerated in the old electrical generating stations and petroleum refineries, to provide fuel and power for the the estates, yachts, private jets and limousines of the nation’s ‘leaders’, thus making up for the loss of oil supplies after the Arab/Muslim nations declare sanctions against the US/Israel alliance for ‘Crimes against humanity’?
The failures of those charged with regulatory powers to actually regulate ensures that the criminality will continue.
That our entire economy was brought to its knees by the venality of so many financial firms is simple fact. That crimes go unpunished is chaos and points most assuredly to the fascism that rules our government and our lives.
Quote-unquote: “The Department of Justice has shied away in recent years from chasing down white-collar crime, relying instead on “deferred prosecution agreements,” which essentially have allowed companies, financial institutions especially, to investigate and report their own wrongdoing.”
How can anyone believe that people with white collars will “report their own wrongdoings” especially when inspection and verification are weak or nonexistent? Why, one might ask, did they not all “report their own wrongdoings” in the recent
securities collapse—and that, preferably, before the bust? And when people with blue collars “report the wrongdoings” of the white collars, what a flurry of prosecutorial activity there is—NOT!
Deep in the upper sanctums of the Great White House, doesn’t Obama ever wake up in the middle of the night and hear the creak of FDR’s wheelchair rolling around downstairs? Or doesn’t he wonder why he forgot to turn out the light in the East Room, and go down to find Old Abe sitting at his desk, scratching out notes on the back of that famous old envelope: “... dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Quelle Surprise! Haiti on the Mend
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By question, July 9, 2011 at 3:18 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Oh puh-leeze. Self-policing has always been an effective method among crooks, right? Do we need more evidence that this administration is the latest in a long line of politicians bought by corporations & raking in money faster than ever before? July 14 is Bastille Day, America.
Report thisBy DaveZx3, July 9, 2011 at 11:13 am Link to this comment
AND SO DOES BIG GOVERNMENT.
So now that everything is under control, us peons should be able to take the rest of the summer off, shouldn’t we?
Report thisBy A. Benway, July 9, 2011 at 9:03 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Well, a “deferred prosecution agreement” is a dust-off of an time-tested method once well known to all Americans. Back in the day it was, however, known by another name - the pay-off.
Both names tend to obscure the truth - it’s a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Report thisBy GW=MCHammered, July 9, 2011 at 6:44 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The next, worse financial crisis
Ten reasons we are doomed to repeat 2008
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-next-worse-financial-crisis-2011-07-06
‘But look at who’s still running the economy: Bernanke. Geithner. Summers. Goldman Sachs. J.P. Morgan Chase. We’ve had the same establishment in charge since at least 1987, when Paul Volcker stood down as Fed chairman. Change? What “change”?’
Report thisBy TDoff, July 9, 2011 at 5:05 am Link to this comment
When is the old poly-humped camel that the US populace has become going to have the last leaden straw dumped on it’s back? The one that breaks it’s spine and forces it to it’s knees, with it’s snout in the dirt, so that it can no longer breathe?
Will this ‘Stay Out Of Jail Free’ card for the rich and corporate officers be the final straw? Or will we wait until ‘our’ representatives pass a law that declares all citizens earning less than $200K/year and/or with a net worth under $2M to be ‘disposable’, and thus subject to containment in the new Xe ‘Freedom Camps’, until their number is drawn?
Report thisThe number that all ‘disposables’ are assigned which determines, by lottery, the order in which they will be incinerated in the old electrical generating stations and petroleum refineries, to provide fuel and power for the the estates, yachts, private jets and limousines of the nation’s ‘leaders’, thus making up for the loss of oil supplies after the Arab/Muslim nations declare sanctions against the US/Israel alliance for ‘Crimes against humanity’?
By ardee, July 9, 2011 at 3:34 am Link to this comment
The failures of those charged with regulatory powers to actually regulate ensures that the criminality will continue.
That our entire economy was brought to its knees by the venality of so many financial firms is simple fact. That crimes go unpunished is chaos and points most assuredly to the fascism that rules our government and our lives.
Report thisBy prisnersdilema, July 9, 2011 at 2:40 am Link to this comment
You mean the DOJ doesn’t do it’s job anymore Because it’s just too hard…
It’s like saying, let the mafia, police itself, because their better at it than we are…
Or is it because he who controls the laws makes it easy for the bigger thief to steal a
Report thiswhole country…and the crooks certainly run things now..
By gerard, July 8, 2011 at 5:44 pm Link to this comment
Quote-unquote: “The Department of Justice has shied away in recent years from chasing down white-collar crime, relying instead on “deferred prosecution agreements,” which essentially have allowed companies, financial institutions especially, to investigate and report their own wrongdoing.”
How can anyone believe that people with white collars will “report their own wrongdoings” especially when inspection and verification are weak or nonexistent? Why, one might ask, did they not all “report their own wrongdoings” in the recent
securities collapse—and that, preferably, before the bust? And when people with blue collars “report the wrongdoings” of the white collars, what a flurry of prosecutorial activity there is—NOT!
Deep in the upper sanctums of the Great White House, doesn’t Obama ever wake up in the middle of the night and hear the creak of FDR’s wheelchair rolling around downstairs? Or doesn’t he wonder why he forgot to turn out the light in the East Room, and go down to find Old Abe sitting at his desk, scratching out notes on the back of that famous old envelope: “... dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Report this