ABSTRACT
This chapter relates how the Obama administration expanded its too big to jail prosecutions of the large banks into other financial service activities, including money laundering, breaches of US government financial sanctions on rogue nations and illegal tax shelter programs for wealthy US citizens. It recounts some own goal financial setbacks by the large banks, including massive losses from unauthorized trading by rogue trader employees. This chapter also catalogues cases brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission over insider trading by “expert networking” groups. It describes how the new crime of “spoofing,” which was created by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, became a popular target for prosecutors. The chapter then turns to a potpourri of stock and commodity market regulatory concerns that range from recordkeeping errors to Ponzi schemes. This chapter also sets forth controversies concerning prosecution failures and over-reaching by the Securities and Exchange Commission, including a widely publicized case brought by the former against the entrepreneur Elon Musk.
