The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is after the our friends over at JP Morgan Chase for rigging wholesale electricity prices to the tune of $73m. You thought that activity went away with the collapse of Enron? These crooks will steal anything that isn’t nailed down, well okay, they will pry up the nails too.
They aren’t the only people the FERC has been going after, Obama was delayed in appointing people by Republicans in the Senate, but things are finally starting to happen.
The FERC has been going after other “banks” (that’s a questionable term) for stealing hundreds of millions by illegal trading schemes. And, this is only the low hanging fruit. More complex schemes, and strategies that were de-criminalized by Reagan, and his successors, have cost us billions if not trillions.
There is an ongoing slaughter of executives over at Barclay’s bank as regulators begin to take them down for rigging the interest rate back in 2008. It is alleged that they systematically conspired with other banks to under report to regulators the interest they were paying and receiving on loans to other banks. This reporting sets the LIBOR (London Inter Bank Overnight Rate), this interest rate affects virtually all financial transitions.
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