Financial Industry, Probe | featured news

HSBC, the British banking giant, will pay $1.9 billion to settle a money-laundering probe by federal and state authorities in the United States, a law enforcement official said Monday.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe. It is examining whether the firms used a tax strategy to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. The practice involved converting some fees collected for managing accounts into fund investments, resulting in a lower tax rate.

The U.S. government's investigation into the Lehman Brothers collapse has hit daunting hurdles that could result in no civil or criminal charges ever being filed against the company's former executives.