"Given that over 35,000 people were brutally slain in Mexico at the hands of drug traffickers while HSBC laundered at least $880m of their money, it's shocking that the current system of sanctions does not include senior executives being held personally responsible for the actions of their institutions. Is HSBC too big to jail?"

Gleeson would not be the first judge to challenge a DPA in recent months. Last year Jed Rakoff refused to sign off on an agreement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission over the sale of "toxic" mortgage bonds. In his opinion the $285m settlement was "neither reasonable, nor fair, nor adequate, nor in the public interest". That dispute is ongoing.