A person who is familiar with the matter disclosed to Bloomberg that banks Credit Suisse Group AG and BNP Paribas SA are at risk of getting filed with criminal charges by US and state prosecutors. This development signaled the intensified efforts of authorities to resolve probes on major banks, the news agency said.
Credit Suisse has long been targeted by the US in a criminal probe which seeks to discover whether the bank had played a role in helping US citizens to evade taxes. BNP Paribas, on the other hand, is under a federal investigation for potential violations of sanctions that bars the bank from doing business with banned countries.
Bloomberg said that prosecuting both banks would certainly break a historical trend of authorities brokering settlements with large banks whom they considered integral to the financial system. The news agency recalled that in previous probes, authorities usually end resolving proves through non-prosecution and deferred-prosecution arrangements. These moves had been largely criticized by US lawmakers for the authorities' incapability of holding companies accountable for breaking laws. Last month, US Attorney Preet Bharara for the Southern District of New York indicated that such trend will soon change, and said that a significant financial institution will be charged soon.
In an interview on CNBC, former Citigroup Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sanford "Sandy" Weill said, "Maybe the US attorney's office is saying these things to get a resolution of the problem without it going to court and without having to do that. How does a bank stay in business if they're charged criminally?"
On the other hand, not all authorities are keen to charging such large financial institutions yet. Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress in March that filing criminal charges against a bank to a point of threatening its existence could endanger the national or global economies because of its sheer size and interconnectedness.
