UK muscles up on bankster punishment

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From the AFR:

Senior bankers in Britain could face a jail term of up to seven years if their bank fails and they are subsequently found guilty of “reckless misconduct”, draft laws suggest.

The sentence was included in a wide-ranging set of proposed amendments to the Banking Reform Bill which the coalition government is seeking to enact in the wake of the financial crisis.

A cross-party panel of lawmakers had recommended introducing the charge of “reckless misconduct in the management of a bank” earlier this year as one of many proposals aimed at cleaning up Britain’s banking culture and improve the standards of corporate governance.

“During the financial crisis and in recent years, the reputation of the City of London took a real knock,” Financial Secretary to the Treasury Greg Clark told activists at the ruling Conservative party’s annual conference in Manchester.

“I think it is particularly important for a City of London whose reputation throughout centuries has been based on integrity, on trust, on probity that we should move further and faster than others to restore it.”

Not holding my breath for similar here where the only place white collar crime is kept is under the carpet.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.