Two large international banks — Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas — are expected to plead guilty to criminal charges within the next few weeks. If that happens, they will pay large fines and officially be felons.

Should anyone care?

Is there really a difference between criminal convictions of banks and civil settlements that yield equally large fines?

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. certainly thinks so. He proudly proclaimed a couple of weeks ago that there was no bank “too big to jail.”

The obvious problem with that statement is that it is a non sequitur. Big or small, banks and other corporations are too inanimate to jail. Executives conceivably could be sent to prison, but that is not what we are talking about here.

But if companies cannot be sent to Leavenworth, they can face the death penalty

more http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/business/banks-that-are-criminals-remain-in-business.html?_r=0