How can we ever forget the Casino style banking practices which resulted in the global banking crisis of 2008; the widespread mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) - (over £26.5 billion so far has been repaid (January 2017), and, the fraudulent actions connected to the manipulation of Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate). The examples which follow below help to illustrate the part played by HSBC.
For example, in 2009 HSBC was fined £3m for 'careless' handling of customer details which could have ended up in the hands of criminals.
In June 2015, news emerged that "HSBC will pay 40m Swiss francs (£28m) to authorities in Geneva over failures related to money laundering at its private bank." Authorities in Geneva had raided offices after several media organisations published details of how HSBC’s private bank in Switzerland aided wealthy clients avoid paying tax and helped drug and weapons smugglers launder money.
Also that year Treasury committee chairman, Andrew Tyrie, pointed out [to Stuart Gulliver, HSBC’s chief executive, and, Douglas Flint, who was finance director at the time HSBC took over the Swiss subsidiary]
the bank was not just facing criticism over its past Swiss subsidiary but over contemporary events, including interest rate derivative selling, Libor manipulation, Eurobor manipulation, mis-selling mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Forex rigging, weakness in money laundering, credit default swaps … rigging precious metals... and was involved in 'various class action lawsuits over the Bernie Madoff fraud.'
In a perverse twist the public learned that HSBC bankers were to be awarded £2.2bn in bonuses.
The following year HSBC agreed to pay "$1.6 billion to end a long-running securities fraud case involving the mortgage and credit card company it purchased in 2002." Despite admitting guilt to US prosecuting authorities, in relation to its' criminal activities, no criminal prosecution of either HSBC nor it's officials has ever taken place.
Why not?
Analysis of the documentary: All the Plenary's Men
You are urged to watch the following jaw-dropping documentary by John Titus of the youtube channel Best Evidence which is embedded at the foot of this article. The documentary is the result of meticulous research, and critical analysis, of primary evidence which included government reports, internal government emails, U.S. Senate hearing transcripts, UK Parliament reports, and, official reports & charters from global financial entities. This evidence illustrates the corruptive power of the Bank for International Settlements and its agents which have in turn enabled a global banking cartel to commit serious criminal offences whilst being shielded from prosecution by the Nations in which they operate.
Several key issues are brought into sharp focus by the documentary maker. For example, it emerged in a US Congressional report that the then UK Chancellor had intervened in order to talk down the punishment handed down to HSBC by US prosecutors.
George Osborne's letter indicated that in relation to HSBC
Adair Turner, Mervyn King and I are committed to ensuring that UK Financial Institutions are fully compliant with Global Standards and rules.
Mervyn King was Governor of the Bank of England at the time. Adair Turner was head of the Financial Services Authority which provided light touch regulation of UK financial services.
The documentary maker then asks the 64 million dollar question: What are the "Global Standards and rules that George Osborne referred to?
Within his letter George Osborne had has also warned that pursuing a systemically important financial institution “could lead to [financial] contagion” and pose “very serious implications for financial and economic stability, particularly in Europe and Asia."
According to John Titus the term 'systemically important financial institutions' is the give-away. In the year prior to Osborne's letter the Financial Stability Board of the Bank for International Settlements published for the first time a list of banks under this exact rubric.
The Financial Stability Board was the only global financial entity to use this phrase.
The Chair of the FSB until 2011 was Mario Draghi. It has been chaired by the Bank of England's current governor, Mark Carney, ever since. Carney, formerly of Golman Sachs, was an attendee at the Bilderberger meetings of 2011 and 2012, and trustee of the World Economic Forum which we previously pointed out had published the report A Blueprint for Digital Identity: The Role of Financial Institutions in Building Digital Identity.
In effect the intervention by then UK Chancellor George Osborne has been cited by some as the sole reason that the US Department of Justice accepted a watered down Deferred Prosecution Agreement.
The documentary also presents compelling evidence to suggest that International Agreements, such as the Headquarters Agreement of the Bank of International Settlements, provides Officials of this banking cartel with
immunity from jurisdiction for acts accomplished in the discharge of their duties..even after such persons have ceased to be officials at the bank.
In addition Article 3 (2) of the Headquarters agreement requires that
all documents and any data media belonging to the Bank or in its possession, shall be inviolable at all times and in all places.
Article 3 (2) immunity presents a considerable obstacle which could prevent prosecutors from gaining access to documentary or other required evidence.
Few would disagree with John Titus who concludes that
The outcome of the HSBC case was dictated by the Financial Stability Board through a handful of traitors who betrayed their countries trust to advance the only allegience they have: to a global criminal banking cartel that has nothing but contempt for the nations that it systematically loots.
According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in the case of United States v. United Mine Workers (1947)
In our country, law is not a body of technicalities in the keeping of specialists or in the service of any special interest. There can be no free society without law administered through an independent judiciary. If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process. For legal process is subject to democratic control by defined, orderly ways which themselves are part of law. In a democracy, power implies responsibility.
But isn’t this precisely what we are witnessing in relation to the criminal activities of banks such as HSBC?
The tragic irony is that it is to be these same criminal banks who will be helping to propel us all towards our new Digital Global Identity.
