Man, WTF, from Banking Day:
The tenor of the political response in Australia to public angst over the admitted and alleged instances of misconduct in the banking industry has nosedived once more.
The Financial Review this morning has the “drop” from treasurer Scott Morrison.
The federal government will introduce criminal penalties and new regulations to prevent the manipulation of the bank bill swap rate, one of the acts that has precipitated calls earlier this year for a royal commission into banks.
Treasurer Scott Morrison told the newspaper the laws “will ensure that past egregious conduct by the banks in manipulating benchmarks is prevented in the future”.
The strident and insistent rebuttal of linked claims in this vein by ASIC against ANZ, NAB and Westpac (also echoed in a class action) may have evaded the authors of this political propaganda timed to crowd the news cycle as the CEO of Commonwealth Bank trots along today to the House economics committee.
The new penalties and regulations were recommended by the Council of Financial Regulators, the AFR reported, with the laws to come into force from January 2018. More details on the measure may be shared later today.
The AFR spelled out more details of the plan.
Under the changes, it will become a specific criminal and civic offence, with prison sentences, to manipulate any financial benchmark or financial product used to determine a financial benchmark in Australia. The offence will apply whether the manipulation is done domestically or abroad.
Criminal acts will include making false or misleading statements or engaging in dishonest conduct in relation to determining a BBSW or other benchmark.
As well, administrators of the BBSW and other significant financial benchmarks will be required to hold a new Benchmark Administration Licence issued by ASIC, and ASIC will be empowered to set enforceable rules for both the administrators of benchmarks and for entities such as banks that make submissions to such benchmarks.
Technocratic law reform proposals is one thing. The cack-handed victimisation today by the Treasurer – convicting three banks before their day in a (civil) court – that really takes the cake.
It sure does. Where is due process? MB supports a royal commission into banking malfeasance and if that were to recommend criminal law reform then all to the good.
But this ad hoc policy-making for political points is not just ridiculous it is dangerous. There has been no proper investigation. There are currently four unco-ordinated private and public hearings throwing up random allegations and fixes. The government itself has spent the entire time denying the need for any of it. Yet now folks are going to jail for crimes that have not been defined, for periods that have been determined by exclusive fiat of the real estate treasurer, without any legal precedent and/or reference to any court in the land.
This is rule by politicised moron.
