Suddenly supine, Barclays is taking the sensible course over a pocket-change fine

Outlook: Barclays chose a dogmatic approach when New York’s Attorney-General came calling with allegations about how it operated its 'dark pool' stock exchange

Barclays has fought back over allegations of fraud (Getty)

When US regulators come calling with subpoenas, banks have usually chosen to assume the position.

Small wonder, given the fondness of watchdogs for multibillion-dollar penalties – not to mention the scary consequences of getting on their bad side. Try asking BNP Paribas how much fun it is being a big global banking group that isn’t allowed to clear dollar transactions.

Barclays, however, chose to take a different tack when New York’s Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman came calling with allegations about how it operated its “dark pool” stock exchange and how it was used by the sort of high-frequency traders made infamous by Michael Lewis’s bestseller Flash Boys.

The bank was feisty. It braced for a fight. It got to the stage of pooh-poohing Mr Schneiderman’s allegations in public and tried to get them dismissed.

The case, it said, had “clear and substantial factual errors”, used “snippets of marketing brochures” and relied on “brief quotes in news articles”. It claimed Mr Schneiderman failed “to identify any fraud” while “establishing no material mis-statements, no identified victims and no actual harm”.

We were also told the A-G, seeking re-election, had overreached himself and should have left oversight of such exchanges to the Securities & Exchange Commission. Which happily joined the party and will now take half of the $70m (£49m) penalty Barclays has agreed. Not exactly one of those multibillion-dollar mega-penalties of which the US authorities are so fond, it’s true, but still a record in this sphere.

In part, Barclays’ sudden kow-tow is a matter of expediency. It chose to fight under the regime of Antony Jenkins. For his recently arrived successor, Jes Staley, settling for what amounts to a rounding error gets rid of an irritation that might have become something worse.

When Barclays was still fighting back it had sought to portray this as a shakedown by an ambitious attorney-general. Let’s assume that’s true, for a moment. Given the number and scale of its past misdeeds, Barclays, indeed any bank (it’s worth noting that Credit Suisse has also ponied up), isn’t going to get much sympathy. That won’t change until there is a genuine change in the way they conduct themselves, and we’re not there yet.

If bigger really is better, BT’s customers need proof

The BT juggernaut is rolling, beating the City’s forecasts with the “best results in seven years” and celebrating by unveiling an overhaul in the wake of the EE acquisition.

In future there will be six divisions, two of which will look after consumers, two will focus on business and the public sector, and two more will provide wholesale services to industry rivals.

But just as EE walks in through one door, will Openreach, which provides the infrastructure for broadband providers, be on its way out of another?

BT’s shares have provided a happy hunting ground for investors in recent times, but Openreach’s cloudy future continues to hang over the group.

Regardless of the Openreach outcome, BT has much to prove. With the purchase of EE it’s added millions of new customers, some of whom will have abandoned the company in the past over its service standards. I’m among them, and, like many, I’m not exactly thrilled to be back in the fold.

Regardless of which division customers finds themselves in, BT needs to prove that big can be just as beautiful for the consumer as it is for the investor. Happy customers make for a quiet life for regulators, and regulators do rather like a quiet life.

Expect no thrown stones from M&G’s glass house

Back in 2010, M&G chief executive Michael McLintock prompted chants from the floor at a stormy AGM held by its owner Prudential, at a time when shareholder dissatisfaction was at its height.

Mr McLintock was the small shareholders’ chosen champion; their choice to run a company that had spectacularly botched a bid for the Asian insurer AIA, at a considerable cost to them.

But did Mr McLintock, who enjoyed a staggering salary and bonus package, deserve their fealty?

During a reign that is drawing to a close after nearly two decades, M&G, run as a semi-independent republic of the Prudential empire, has been a pillar of the City establishment.

When there have been governance issues at companies in which it has invested its customers money, M&G has preferred to work behind the scenes rather than making public statements. Its defenders argue that this is the best way to get things done.

But is that really the case, particularly if you’re unwilling to vote where it counts when faced with recalcitrant boards? As has often been the case with M&G.

During the so called “shareholder spring” of 2012, I revealed in this newspaper that Legal & General opposed management resolutions at 76 different companies. M&G didn’t manage even a third of that.

Mr McLintock’s replacement will be Anne Richards, the chief investment officer of Aberdeen Asset Management. She’ll make £400,000 annually, could earn six times that in bonuses. Not to mention long-term share awards and a golden hello. Given that, would you expect to see M&G getting involved in any pay disputes? No. Neither would I.