Keeping it secret

Derivatives were a major cause of the Great Depression. Two of the worst offenders were Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. The government (we) really helped them out. In 2011, Citigroup received $2.5 trillion in cumulative, secret low cost loans from the Federal Reserve during the 2007-2010 financial crisis while Merrill received $1.9 trillion. But both companies are still heavily involved with derivatives, so involved that they have been fined by "regulators". 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently fined Citigroup $550,000 for failing to properly report derivative trades. One of the violations was defined as follows: “…Citi violated its reporting obligations by reporting ‘Name Withheld’ as the counterparty identifier for tens of thousands of swaps with counterparties in certain foreign jurisdictions.”

And, for the second time in two years, the Financial Conduct Authority in the U.K. has fined Merrill Lynch for failure  “to report 68.5 million exchange traded derivative transactions between 12 February 2014 and 6 February 2016.”