Template:Roll of honour

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Roll of Honour, financial disasters edition
Scandal Date Where Loss Reason Firings Jail-Time?
Credit Suisse Switzerland Gradual decline into entropy with a 92% decline in share price since 2015. Hubris, widespread incompetence, stupidity, spying, uselessness. Billions and billions over a series of avoidable cockups. Like the old man in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “I’m not dead. I think I’m going for a walk. I feel happy.” Market (to SNB): “Isn’t there anything you can do?” It is not, yet, a crime to make a series of howling cockups[1] over a credulity-defying period any more than it is a crime to not read an AT1 prospectus. Reputations damaged for ever, but alas no porridge, however richly deserved it may seem.
Silicon Valley Bank memeplex 2023 US $80bn or more Dopey bank management, regulator asleep at switch, Peter Thiel panicking Bank insolvent. Bondholders and shareholders wiped out. Other banks levied. Triggered other moral panics such as First National, Signature bank and others (poor old lucky Credit Suisse) None yet. Lots of arguments about the presence or absence of moral hazard. Moral panic more like.
Frank 2023 US $175m Fraud, unfeasible gullibility Javice got fired. Surely more to come Not yet clear
FTX/Sam Bankman-Fried 2022 US, Bahamas $32bn (so far) so some claims that everything has now been recovered and returned to its rightful owner Hubris, stupidity, fraud Fired: Gary Wang, Caroline Ellison, SBF.
Bankruptcies: Alameda, Genesis, Blockfi.
Suspensions of trading: Gemini
Reported Losses: Crypto.com, Tiger Global Management, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, SoftBank Group, BlackRock, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Temasek, and Sequoia Capital reported losses of $1bn
Charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., violation of campaign finance laws.
Barclays MTN Programme Limit 2022 US £1.3bn Internal Operations None reported but you have to fear for those poor folk in ops. I beg your pardon? What poor folk in ops? Oh, Right. No
LME Nickel short squeeze 2022 London “Billions” LME None reported ... yet No
Evergrande 2021 China $300bn Who knows? No
Archegos 2021 US $10bn+ UMR
Internal operations
100+ across brokers plus several senior executives and one CEO Eyes peeled, Mr Huang
Greensill 2021 UK $4.6bn
Melvin Capital Management LP 2021 US $7bn Hubris detector failed Everyone! The fund shut down shortlay after Talk of regulators, outrageously, going after the outsider traders, but nothing as yet.
Citigroup v Brigade 2021 US $500m Outsourcing, Operations, IT Not reported but wouldn’t fancy being head of the team in Bangalore No
Nikola 2020 US About 80% share drop CEO misrep Must have been plenty CEO indicted on charges of securities fraud
Wirecard 2020 Germany $4bn CEO misrep All of them Three charged with fraud including CEO
WeWork 2019 US $11bn over three years CEO yogababble Nothing to see here folks! Got a new venture to start up Jail? Dude hasn’t even been kicked off Marc Andreesen’s Xmas Card list.
Carillion 2018 UK £7bn Auditors 3,000 jobs No but litigation a-plenty
Patisserie Valerie 2018 UK
Abraaj 2017 Saudi
Fyre festival 2017 US
Mozambique tuna bonds 2012-2016 Mozambique, Russia and Switzerland £1.5-2bn Credit Suisse fined £350m and required to forgive its loans ouch Fraud, corruption, money laundering Plenty, including three Credit Suisse bankers and the minister in Mozambique Three Credit Suisse bankers done on money laundering charges
1MDB 2016 Malaysia, but tentacles stretching all over the world: USA, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, China Somewhere between $4.5bn and $8bn Colossal fraud, corruption, money laundering and hip-hop Hell yeah. Prime Ministers, Goldman Sachs Partners, and one dude — Jho Low — on the lam in rural china You betcha: Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Luxembourg, Seychelles, Singapore, Switzerland, UAE, UK and US are all actively pursuing action. The two Goldman partners pled or were found guilty; one sentenced to 10 years, one awaiting sentencing. Malaysian PM and wife convicted and sentenced to 10+ years with money laundering. If anyone catches Jho Low he’s for the high jump too.
Mossack Fonseca 2016 Panama
Theranos 2016 US
Wells Fargo accounts fraud 2016 US
Volkswagen emissions 2015 Germany and US
Autonomy 2012 UK and US
Olympus 2012
LIBOR 2012 UK
London Whale 2012 UK
Kweku Abodoli 2011 UK
Jérôme Kerviel 2008 UK
Bernie Madoff 2008 US
Amaranth 2007 US
Tyco 2002 US
Parmalat 2003 Italy
Freddie Mac 2003 US
Global Crossing 2002 US
WorldCom 2002 US
Enron 2001 US
LTCM 1998 US $3.6 bn bailout orchestrated by the Fed Black-Scholes option pricing model attacked them from nowhere Everyone out of a job, Master of the Universe-sized reputations (John Meriwether, Myron Scholes, Robert C. Merton) cut to ribbons No, though fourteen bank CEOs were locked in a room by the Federal Reserve for a weekend so that is something.
Yasuo Hamanaka 1996 UK
Savings and Loan 1995 US
Nick Leeson 1992 UK Singapore
  1. except where the individual cockups were themselves criminal of course