Holder’s Message
A year ago, Holder told an audience at the same law school that charges against bankers for criminal conduct were in the works and that market manipulation investigations were being aided by informants and undercover traders. Those cases have been slow in coming, even as the department entered into multibillion-dollar settlements with global financial institutions.
Prosecutors charged 12 traders with attempting to rig benchmark interest rates. Three have pleaded guilty and the other cases are pending. The Justice Department never prosecuted a high-level investment-bank executive for wrongdoing that led to the housing bust and financial crisis, which has drawn ire from lawmakers, public-interest groups and even a prominent federal judge in Manhattan, Jed Rakoff.
The department has also relied heavily on deferred- prosecution agreements, which withhold criminal charges against companies in exchange for cooperation with investigations and promises to root out misconduct. Critics of the deals say they are too lenient and aren’t effective in deterring misconduct.
Yates’s speech comes as the department’s antitrust division is deciding whether to charge currency traders who were members of a chat room known as “The Cartel,” according to two people familiar with the matter. The traders allegedly colluded with counterparts at other banks to rig foreign-exchange fixings, according to authorities who settled with six banks and extracted nearly $6 billion in penalties in May.