The Libor scandal which came to light towards the end of the Global Financial Crisis, perhaps more than anything else, shows that elements of the financial world clearly believe that the rules governing criminal behaviour do not apply to them. Libor was a sort of “gentleman’s club” type of agreement whereby leading bankers got together and compared notes about the rates of interest they were having to pay to borrow funding from other banks. This figure was then aggregated and used to set the Libor rate (London Interbank Offer Rate) which had implications for literally trillions of dollars’ worth of loans, mortgages and other financial arrangements on a daily basis. Over time, it has emerged that these pillars of the financial establishment have been misreporting their borrowing costs (and so rigging Libor) to make their own financial positions as businesses look better or to give their brokers an advantage when making deals. It is the equivalent of going to a casino on holiday and discovering, many weeks later, that the gaming tables have been fixed.

Nobody has gone to jail over manipulation of Libor (it is a criminal offence in the UK and elsewhere under conspiracy to commit fraud and fraud laws – the UK chancellor is bringing in new (and unneeded) legislation to make it a specific offence to conspire to unduly influence Libor and other “fixes”). However, financial regulators have levied a number of swinging fines against banks at the heart of the affair. The latest bank to get its knuckles so-rapped is German giant Deutsche Bank (DB). It has been fined £227 million by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and $2.1 billion by US regulators, totalling €2.3 billion. Clearly, these record fines are significant, but the market capitalisation of Deutsche Bank is approximately €41 billion, the fines relate to Libor and Euribor manipulation.

According to FCA, Deutsche Bank hampered the investigation by deleting 482 taped phone calls “in error” – that would go down like a lead balloon in any other criminal proceeding. The record fines were imposed because the bank was judged to have impeded the investigation which stemmed from activities between 2005 and 2009.

In a statement, co-chief executives of Deutsche Bank Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen noted: "We deeply regret this matter but are pleased to have resolved it. The Bank accepts the findings of the regulators. We have disciplined or dismissed individuals involved in the trader misconduct; have substantially strengthened our control teams, procedures and record-keeping; and are conducting a thorough review of the Bank's actions in addressing this matter." Of course they do – they got caught.