We need to start a JAIL THE BANKERS AND SEIZE THEIR ASSETS petition.

There is a prima facie case that fraud has taken place across the UK banking industry, causing serious damage to our economy and to indvidual businesses. We cannot allow those individuals who engage in such serious frauds to go unpunished.

There is a lack of political will to hold fraudulent bankers to account, not a lack of legal basis.

Sign up to put pressure on the Coalition government to charge, try, and jail the Barclays and other bankers and seize their ill-gotten assets. NOW. Don't let them fob us off with future actions.

Click on the "Petition Letter" tab to see the text of the letter.

This petititon is addressed to the UK Parliament, the Financial Services Authority, the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Serious Fraud Office, HM's Treasury and the Treasury Solicitor's Department. We believe that all of these agencies should play their role in holding fraudulent bankers to account, rather than engaging in buck-passing and ducking responsibility using the excuse of lack of remit.

Each time a person signs the petition, an e-mail with the Petition Letter will be generated and sent to the offices of all of the above bodies.

Check "Petition Updates" tab for regular updates. Scroll down to see relevant background info, including actual text of the Fraud Act 2006 (the section on "false representation", the most relevant fraud charge, is quoted).

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LATEST UPDATE:

4 July 2012:

As we all know, Bob Diamond resigned yesterday. That is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Diamond is STILL AT LARGE. He is to face the Treasury Select Committee later this today. But if the TSC is merely going to repeat the embarrassing performance of the Select Committee used to so-called "grill" Murdoch but ended up doing nothing of the sort, beware, WE ARE WATCHING YOU.

We already have one spineless Chairman of the FSA who tries even now to dodge responsibilty of the failure of the regulator to look into LIBOR, saying that LIBOR does not fit as a "qualifying instrument" under "City regulation" (even though the far more pertinent and wide-ranging Fraud Act 2006 does) and that in any case FSA didn't know about LIBOR manipulation (even though Americans had no trouble putting two and two together using merely publicly available data as evidenced by the American class action suit lawyer interviewed by Jon Snow on C4 News). No journalist has yet been seen demanding to know why the FSA didn't pass on fraud cases to the SFO in the first instance back in 2008 when evidence of fraudulent rate manipulation emerged but say their own hands were tied. 

But back to Bob. It is so obvious what game he is trying to play. Diamond knows that under Fraud Act 2006 criminal prosecution has to show intention as well as the manifestation of the actual behaviour. He's (and Barclays and the rest of the banks) been caught red-handed in the behaviour. There's Zero Chance he could brazen that one out.

So the only get-out-of-jail-free card he is desperately trying to conjure out of thin air to is to show that he hasn't acted "dishonestly" but "mistakenly".

That's why Paul Tucker from Bank of England is being used as an excuse for the Barclays' own fraudulent behaviours. That's why Diamond is implicating "senior Whitehall figures" because he knows full well that political in-fighting between the parties will make sure the focus is not on him and he's trying to engineer a political witchhunt to divert attention away from the public's pursuit of justice where his own criminal responsibility is concerned.  That's why Diamond is already setting up his Chief Operating Officer (who resigned also yesterday) to be the fall guy (again, another guy to take the bullet rather than him!), by alleging that, whilst Diamond himself didn't get the impression that he should manipulate LIBOR on foot of his conversation with Tucker, Barclays put out a statement that said "Jerry del Missier concluded that an instruction had been passed down from the Bank of England not to keep Libors so high and he therefore passed down a direction to that effect to the [traders]." (Peston, BBC, 3 July, 2012).

It's also why Bob, in his resignation letter to the board, had the gall to claim that "every single one" of Barclays' staff is "working hard to serve our customers". Diamond's trying to brazen out the accusation of any dishonest wrong-doing by any of the bankers working at Barclays -- yes, including those managers and traders blithely talking about celebrating Big Boy favours with Bollinger's in their e-mails -- by trying to hand himself and every single banker at Barclays (and by implication ALL BANKERS CAUGHT IN THE FRAUD) a get-out-of-jail-free card using Tucker's phonecall as an excuse.

But Bob, Bob, Bob, do you seriously think we the public are THAT STUPID???????

YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH DEFRAUDING AN ENTIRE NATION????????

Your chairman Agius, whom you threw under the bus to try to save yourself just 48 hours ago, is still foolishly (or disingenuously?) defending your honour in front of journalists by dodging questions regarding your resignation severance package.

But if you think we will even countenance another Fred-the-Shred, YOU HAVE ANOTHER THINK COMING. 

Andrew Tyrie, Conservative MP who will be chairing the TSC questioning of Bob Diamond today, we have this message for you:

WE ARE WATCHING YOU.

If you as Chair of the Treasury Select Committee panel is seen to allow Bob Diamond get away with even an inch later this today, so that he could later use his TSC appearance and "revelations" to escape justice, and help other fraudulent bankers to escape justice, THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY. 

And by the way, WHY ISN'T JERRY DEL MISSIER DETAINED FOR QUESTIONING? If even Barclays themselves admit that he's the crucial person in the chain of events leading to LIBOR manipulation, isn't he a flight risk??? Why hasn't police already rounded up Del Missier for questioning on conspiracy to defraud??? The TSC also needs to summon Jerry Del Missier NOW for questioning after Bob Diamond - after all, we can't have Diamond Bob get away with just presenting his version of events, can we Andrew?

The parliamentary inquiry spat is the LEAST thing you politicians of all three parties need to worry about. For we won't be distracted by all your petty sniping and political gamemanship in our dogged pursuit of REAL JUSTICE.

If you think the public anger couldn't be higher at the MP expenses scandal, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET.

[Post amended with correction of TSC Chairman. Previously had Mark Hoban, Tory MP as chair of Treasury Select Committee panel questioning Diamond as reported in some quarters, it was actually Andrew Tyrie, Tory MP (who is also the guy appointed to chair the parliamentary inquiry if that goes ahead), who chaired the panel this afternoon.]

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Update (2 July 2012):

Parliamentary inquiry is NOT GOOD ENOUGH is place of actual PROSECUTIONS against CURRENT fraudsters.

We must continue to combat lies in the media and put about by FSA regarding lack of basis for criminal prosecution against fraudulent bankers. FSA's lack of "power" to sue individuals on a criminal basis is being used to muddy the waters about whether the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) could indeed proceed with criminal prosecution against fraudulent bankers under the Fraud Act 2006.

We also demand that any further fines imposed on fraudulent banks (there are at least 15 involved according to media reports) must GO TO THE EXCHEQUER (i.e. into the public coffers) rather than being trousered by the banking-industry-funded FSA.

 

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Background:

The Fraud Act 2006 created a general conduct offence precisely because the former deception offences had allowed fraudsters to escape prosecution by arguing that what they had done did not technically fit. It has ensured that all frauds are criminal, new types as well as old ones.

Under the Act, fraud can be committed in three ways:

1) by a false representation;
2) by failing to disclose information; and
3) by abuse of position

"Fraud by false representation

(1) A person is in breach of this section if he—
(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and
(b) intends, by making the representation—
     (i) to make a gain for himself or another, or
     (ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

(2) A representation is false if—
(a) it is untrue or misleading, and
(b) the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.

(3) “Representation” means any representation as to fact or law, including a representation as to the state of mind of—
(a) the person making the representation, or
(b) any other person.

(4) A representation may be express or implied.

(5) For the purposes of this section a representation may be regarded as made if it (or anything implying it) is submitted in any form to any system or device designed to receive, convey or respond to communications (with or without human intervention)."

UK Fraud Act 2006 Chapter 35 Section 2

"In its £290m settlement with the Financial Services Authority in the UK, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice in the US, Barclays has owned up to something very simple and - many would say - profoundly shocking: for four years between 2005 and 2009, it lied about the interest rate it was having to pay to borrow.

Here is today's statement from the CFTC:

"Barclays….attempted to manipulate and made false reports concerning both benchmark interest rates to benefit the bank's derivatives trading positions by either increasing its profits or minimizing its losses. The conduct occurred regularly and was pervasive."

The CFTC also says that after the start of the credit crunch in August 2007, all the way through to early 2009, Barclays made "artificially low…submissions" about the interest rate it was being forced to pay to borrow to "protect Barclays' reputation from negative market and media perceptions concerning Barclays' financial condition".

This was done, according to the CFTC, "as a result of instructions from Barclays' senior management"."

Robert Peston, BBC News, Wednesday 27th June, 2012

"You'd think criminal prosecutions would be the obvious next step, but it's not so simple: Libor falls outside the FSA's remit. Yes, there's that £290m fine – though it's worth noting only £60m of that was imposed by the UK, the rest demanded by American authorities. What's more, that £290m is destined not for the public coffers but for the FSA, which will therefore need to levy less from the banks that fund it – including Barclays. So Barclays lose with one hand but are set to gain with the other. Above all, remember that that £290m is about a tenth of the £2.7bn bonus pool Barclays top dogs paid themselves in 2011. It's more than a slap in the wrist, but not much more."

Jonathan Freedland, Guardian, Friday 29th June, 2012

A survey by the consumer group Which? found popular support among those canvassed for a toughening of the law on malpractice among bankers.

It found more than three-quarters of people (78%) who responded think individuals should be personally prosecuted when banks break the law.

It also showed two-thirds (66%) were not confident the government would act in their best interests when introducing banking reforms.

Robert Peston, BBC News, Sunday, 1 July, 2012.

"As well as being fragile in themselves, the nature of banks’ relationships with each other makes the banking system fragile. Banks are connected to each other directly through counterparty relationships in funding and derivatives markets, and indirectly through holdings of similar assets and the issuance of liabilities to similar or related creditors. This means that banks tend to fail at the same time, either because the failure of one causes the failure of others, or because it indicates an underlying problem in debt markets or the real economy to which several banks are exposed. [...]

The ring-fence would need to be strong in order to provide these benefits. Accordingly, where they were part of a wider corporate group, ring-fenced banks would need to have independent governance and meet regulatory requirements for capital, liquidity, and funding on a standalone basis. The permitted extent of relationships with other parts of the group would be no greater than regulators generally allow with third parties, and would have to be conducted on an arm’s length basis. For all ring-fenced banks, exposures to financial companies would be strictly limited and some limits would also apply to the amount of wholesale funding they could raise."

The Independent Commission on Banking Final Report (The Vickers' Report), September, 2011