Before the 2008 financial crisis, the banking industry wallowed in the lack of regulation like happy hogs in a mudhole. Then Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. went under and the world’s financial system was brought to its knees. Lawmakers passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 to curb banking excesses. And suddenly Wall Street’s world changed.
Regulators were empowered. They went after an array of offenses from “whale” trading to money laundering, from bid rigging to risky swaps practices. They levied record fines against the institutions, including some $6.5 billion collectively in the manipulation of LIBOR (the London Interbank Offered Rate) in 2014. Prosecutors even brought criminal charges against the world’s largest and most prestigious banks—an almost unthinkable action before the crisis—for manipulating the world’s foreign exchange market.
