The government has essentially adopted the "too-big-to-fail" mantra in its pursuit of legal action against HSBC's serious crimes supporting terrorists, drug cartels, and rogue states. These crimes should be met with criminal penalties for the people involved, not shake-downs for loose cash from the company. The penalty extracted will not deter similar activities in the future.
Further reading: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-sett...