Bankers without ethics

Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” which he wrote to commemorate Russia’s defense against Napoleon’s invading Grande Armée, is no match for prosecutors’ and regulators’ cannon fire lodged against banks and bankers some 200 years later. Case in point: the Swiss UBS. In November of 2012, the bank agreed to pay a record 1.4 billion Swiss francs or US$1.5 billion to U.S., U.K. and Swiss regulators to settle allegations in what has been described as a “pervasive” and “epic” plot to rig worldwide interest rates tied to trillions of dollars in loans and financial products. (See the Dec. 19, 2012, Financial Times article, “UBS pays price for ‘epic’ Libor scandal,” by Kara Scannell, Brooke Masters, Carolin Binham and Tom Burgis.)