英國政府對不端行爲罰款 鉅額罰款去哪了

This week some British charities have an unexpected reason to smile. On Wednesday, European and American regulators imposed fines of $4.3bn on six large banks for rigging foreign exchange markets. In the past, the British government has directed some of the money raised from so-called “misdemeanour fines” to worthy causes such as a physical rehabilitation programme for soldiers; it will probably do the same this time. As George Osborne, the UK chancellor, put it: “We’re using the money raised from fines on those who demonstrated the very worst of values in our society to support those who demonstrate the very best.”

一些英國慈善機構有了一個驚喜的理由。上週三，歐洲和美國監管當局以操縱外匯市場爲由，向6家大銀行開出43億美元的罰單。在過去，英國政府曾把這類來自所謂“不端行爲罰款”的收入部分投入到高尚的事業中，比如士兵身體康復計劃。這次英國政府很可能也將這麼做。正如英國財相喬治•奧斯本(George Osborne)所說：“我們把對於那些在我們的社會裏展示出最糟糕價值觀的人的罰款所得，用來資助那些展示出最美好價值觀的人。”

Yet this type of initiative is the exception, not the rule. The fines now being imposed by western regulators are dramatically higher than anything seen before, but much of the money is not being used in a transparent way. That flies in the face of politicians’ demands for finance to become more open. It also risks undermining the search for a sense of justice – and closure.

不過，這種做法屬於例外，而不是通行規則。西方監管機構如今開出的罰款金額比以往高很多，但部分罰款的使用並不透明。這與政治家們關於提高財政透明度的要求背道而馳，也可能破壞社會對正義感——以及有始有終的感覺——的追求。

“It’s very hard to see what is really going on,” observes Roger McCormick, a London-based economist who has been tracking the recent bank penalties. Charles Calomiris, a finance professor at Columbia Business School agrees: “The situation is strange – its incredibly hard to get much data at all.”

“很難看清罰款到底怎麼使用的，”倫敦的經濟學家羅傑•麥考密克(Roger McCormick)說。他一直在關注近來銀行受處罰的事情。哥倫比亞商學院(Columbia Business School)的金融學教授查爾斯•卡洛米里什(Charles Calomiris)表示認同：“眼下的情形很奇怪——想要獲得數據真是太難了。”

What public numbers do exist are thought-provoking. According to Professor McCormick’s research, between 2009 and 2013 the 12 global banks paid out £105.4bn worth of fines to European and US regulators, for crimes ranging from the mis-selling of mortgages to rigging the Libor index of interbank lending rates. They also made £61.23bn provisions for future fines.

能找到的公開數字發人深思。麥考密克教授的研究顯示，2009年至2013年，12家全球性銀行共向歐美監管機構繳納了1054億英鎊的罰款，因爲它們犯下了從不當銷售抵押貸款到操縱倫敦銀行間同業拆借利率(Libor)等各種罪名。它們還爲未來罰款做了612.3億英鎊的撥備。

Data from the Financial Conduct Authority, the British regulator, suggests that it has collected about £2.5bn since 2012, including this week’s fines. Traditionally, regulators used to keep the money they collected in penalties. But since 2012, the FCA has handed this money to the Treasury (after deducting £40m of annual staff costs) and Mr Osborne has said that he will hand over about £300m of this to charity.

英國金融市場行爲監管局(FCA)的數據表明，包括上週的罰款，自2012年以來其收到了約25億英鎊的罰款。傳統上，監管機構通常會保留它們所收的罰款。但自2012年以來，FCA已把這筆收入上繳至英國財政部（事先已扣除了每年4000萬英鎊的人員費用），奧斯本表示，他將把其中約3億英鎊資金投入到慈善事業中。

What will happen to the rest is unclear; it is currently placed in a general government pot. But the situation in the US is lamentably more opaque, since fines are being imposed by numerous different entities.

但其餘罰款如何處置，目前不得而知；這筆錢存放在一個一般政府資金池中。但美國的情況更爲不透明，因爲罰單是由形形色色的機構開出的。

The large federal agencies, such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (both of which fined the banks for forex abuses) hand money from penalties over to the Treasury. There it vanishes into a general budget pot. When state regulators and other bodies collect fines they tend to shower the money on plaintiffs, community groups and lawyers, as well as state attorneys-general, usually in private settlements that entail minimal public disclosure.

大型聯邦機構會把罰款上交美國財政部，比如美國貨幣監理署(OCC)和商品期貨交易委員會(CFTC)，這兩家機構都曾以操縱外匯市場爲由對銀行開過罰單。於是罰款會進入一個一般預算資金池。當州監管當局和其他機構收到罰款時，它們往往把罰款用於原告、社區團體和律師，也會用於州總檢察長——在公開披露程度極低的私下和解時通常如此。

Take the $16.7bn “comprehensive settlement” that Bank of America unveiled in August with the Department of Justice, a collection of federal agencies and six state attorneys-general. When BofA announced this, it said it would pay out $9.95bn for “civil monetary penalties” and so-called “compensatory remediation payments”, but it did not reveal who would receive those sums.

以美國銀行(BoA)爲例，該行8月公佈，跟美國司法部(DoJ)、多家聯邦機構和6位州總檢察長達成了167億美元的“全面和解”。在宣佈這一消息時，美銀表示將繳納99.5億美元“民事罰款”和所謂“賠償補救款”，但沒有透露罰款接受方是誰。

And though local academics, such as Prof Calomiris, have been trying to research the issue, they have found it hard to get any information, since once the money flows into the budget of state officials the local attorneys-general have huge discretion about how they use these large windfalls. “It is a real subversion of the fiscal process,” Prof Calomiris observes.

此外，儘管卡洛米里什教授等本國學者一直在研究此問題，但他們發現很難獲取任何信息，因爲罰款進入州官員的預算之後，州總檢察長對這筆巨大的意外收入有着很大的自由處置權。“這實際上破壞了財政流程，”卡洛米里什教授表示。

This opacity is undesirable. There is good reason to impose hefty fines on the banks, given the scale of the scandals of recent years; unless they are punished it will be hard for the public to ever feel that justice has been done. But at the very least, there needs to be more public debate about how this punishment pot will actually be used; after all, one lesson from the financial crisis is that opacity has a nasty habit of breeding abuse.

這種不透明狀況非常不可取。鑑於近些年來的醜聞範圍波及之廣，監管當局有充足的理由對銀行處以高額罰款；若不處罰這些銀行，將很難讓公衆產生正義得到伸張的感覺。但最起碼，需要對罰款資金池的未來用途進行更公開的討論；畢竟，金融危機的教訓之一，就是不透明很可能滋生不端行爲。

Or to put it another way, the British government deserves one cheer for trying to find a way of using the misdemeanour fines for greater public good; indeed, it is a move that politicians in America should consider copying.

換個角度來說，英國政府設法將不端行爲罰款用於增進公共利益，是值得稱讚之舉；事實上，美國的政治家們應當考慮效仿這一做法。

The UK Treasury would deserve a second cheer if it published audited accounts of how this money is used (a move it is now considering). But what is really needed is a public database of what is happening in the whole of Europe – and, above all, in the US.

如果英國財政部能夠公佈關於罰款使用情況的審計賬目（其正在考慮這一舉措），將是另一值得稱讚之舉。但是，當前真正需要做的是針對整個歐洲——更重要的還有美國——的罰款使用情況，建立一個公共數據庫。

Particularly since that eye-popping £167bn tally is unlikely to be the final hit.

何況目前已高得令人瞠目的1670億英鎊罰款不太可能是最終的罰款總額。