Financial disasters roll of honour

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We all know those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it. But what of those who do remember history? Well, they are apparently condemned to repeat it, too.

See also

• Air crashes v financial crashes
• The dog in the night time

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 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	$32bn (so far)	Hubris, stupidity, fraud	Fired: Gary Wang, Caroline Ellison, SBF Fired. 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-one goes to jail for forgetting to monitor a programme limit.
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