Oh, how we'd have laughed before we owned it... Biggest fine ever or not, the sums paid out are still laughable when you consider what was lost and GS's profits then, and consequently, now.

Yes but RBS are still down $740 million on the deal. Will they now sue for the repayment of those losses?

It was RBS and the other victims I was talking about

I can't see them suing; GS could make that a legal nightmare, RBS hasn't got the stomach or the balls for it I suspect, strained relations...

Yes but without getting the money back it is almost an incentive to do it again. Rip off your customers to the sum of several billion pay out less than a billion in fines and it makes sense to make every deal dodgy.

Damn near every financial group works like that now it seems, from the bean-counters to the banks in one way or another, varying from what makes the mainstream news to Private Eye. The whole thing's so incestuous that no government really has the balls to deal with it it seems, not to mention so many serving and former politicians do so well out of it all. Or their friends do

Don't blame the bean counters. They always get the blame regardless of complicity.

The banks are mired in dodgy practices from credit cards to loans mortgages, savings and money transfers. The problem is that political parties are so spendthrift themselves that they need millions from wealthy donors. They cant get it from the ordinary person because they have been so throughly screwed over by the system that they do not in general have the funds to dominate the party funding, except for the Liberal and the fringe parties. If there were a tough cap on political spending one being a maximum total spend of £2 million and that it could only be funded from subscriptions then the parties will have a real incentive to get members. Rich donors would be irrelevant, and the capping of total donations from all sources by an individual at £500 per year, whether by company share holdings and union subscriptions would again cut the riches financial influence out.

Then with parties more dependent on grass roots support they might actually come out with some decent consumer protection legislation. Simple contracts for all financial products, limits on fees and charges, and then people might actually buy some of these products knowing that they will be fair.

You're very complicit to my mind if you know what's being said using your figures isn't the reality. Or is a highly embellished 'reality'. It's even worse if you're so full of crap that someone equally dodgy but with a bit more skill gets brought in

You must be kidding, GS must be desperate to avoid getting sued by RBS.

RBS can easily afford the legal costs and will be sure to make a massive PR thing out how badly they were lied to. Even the downside for them - the implication that they were idiots to buy - can be covered by mentioning in every press release that they are now under new management.

GS by contrast are hated by financial journalists, and have never had the kind of corporate PR policy that other companies have. Other companies are always trying to get the press to run puff pieces about them, and always like to pander to the myths of corporate social responsibility etc. GS has never bothered pandering to the press (thus the hatred of the journos), and their PR has always amounted to a big shout: F*** You, we pay top dollar and hire super brains from Harvard, and we make [LIFTED] loads of cash.

RBS can put those fat [LIFTED] to the sword no problem, getting publicly caught shafting your own clients is not what a bank like GS needs, their job is to shaft other people on behalf of their customers.

With RBS essentially being a Government-owned bank, I'd be very surprised and very happy to see them challenge this (depending on legal advice).

I expect the $100m will come with conditions that prohibit further lawsuits TBH.

Yip, I think this might be telling:

That will not be possible. Unless RBS agreed beforehand that any deal would preclude them taking their own legal action there is no way that someone can deprive someone else of their rights to a legal remedy. RBS are actually looking at the chances of legal action.