An Analysis of Large Bank Corporate Governance and Litigation Expenses

Abstract

Over the past decade, the banking industry has incurred over $300 billion in litigation and related legal costs. We analyzed the litigation expense data and corporate governance data of seven US and six European banking institutions. The 13 banking intuitions incurred nearly $200 billion in litigation expenses, roughly two-thirds of the total litigation expense incurred by the entire banking industry. We compared corporate governance metrics to the litigation expenses for the same 13 banking institutions. There are four main findings: First, litigation expenses of large banks have been on the decline since 2015; second, although the US banks incurred much greater litigation expenses during the 2010–2014 period, their litigation expenses have declined much more quickly than those of the European banks during the 2015–2017 period; third, litigation expenses incurred by European banks have been much higher than those of US banks when compared with bank total revenues and total capital; fourth, for US banks there is a strong correlation between improved corporate governance and lower litigation costs. However, for European banks it appears that the comply-or-explain approach to corporate governance muddies the link between good corporate governance and lower litigation costs.