They are likely to also be forbidden from dollar clearing for a time, possibly up to a year. This is an unheard of penalty and is actually very punitive. It's a new strategy by the US prosecutors and there was a good Planet Money podcast recently on what it means. Essentially, because we control the reserve currency of the world, we control the ability to transfer foreign currencies into dollars. This is a very powerful thing to control and being restricted from dollar clearing will likely be pretty painful.

Yes, they are banned from some dollar-based transactions for a year, from the start of 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28099694

Here's the link to that Planet Money podcast. It's a very well-done story, but frustrating that in the end nobody is going to jail.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/06/18/323045793/episode-...

Why not just fine them more?

This embargo just forces groups to come up with creative solutions around dollar clearing that could harm the dollar's status as a reserve currency.

> Tens of billions in transactions, 8.9 billion in fines. It was probably worth it even after getting caught.

For the bank? It would have to be retaining a ludicrously high share of the value of each transaction for that to be true -- the transactions were $30 billion, so BNP Paribas would have to have retained nearly a third of the values of the transactions it concealed to break even with a $9 billion fine.

Banks are not people. Was it worth it to the individuals who perpetrated the crime?

Well 13 of them just lost their (well-paying) jobs so maybe not

Would they have kept those jobs (and would those jobs have been as well-paying) if they hadn't been doing those deals?

Having to stop mugging people isn't usually considered part of the punishment for a mugger.

I have lost my job for not being enough of a "team player." Banksters lose their jobs if they violate international law to fund terrorist murder. I hope the stinging from their slap on the wrists isn't too painful. You see, wealthy bank employees have much more sensitive skin than us average folk.

With the size of the fine, there is no chance that it was worth it (to the bank). This fine is over four times bigger than the previous record fine ($1.9 billion, HSBC, also for sanctions violations)

However, it could have been worth it to the individuals who arranged the transactions and (presumably) got large bonuses as a result.

> With the size of the fine, there is no chance that it was worth it (to the bank). This fine is over four times bigger than the previous record fine ($1.9 billion, HSBC, also for sanctions violations)

The previous record fine of a European bank by the US wasn't HSBC's $1.9 billion for sanctions violations, it was Credit Suisse's $2.6 billion for tax evasion.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/30/investing/bnp-paribas-sancti...