BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse, which are now facing criminal proceedings, are requesting authorities in the United States for leniency. To avoid fallout from pleading guilty, the banks are said to have made last-ditch appeals to prosecutors and regulators in recent weeks. The private meetings came after prosecutors sought guilty pleas from the parent companies of both banks. BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse are said to have proposed more modest guilty pleas from their subsidiaries instead, but prosecutors appeared to balk at those overtures, challenging broader public concerns that banks have grown so important to the economy that they are effectively ‘too big to jail,’ accoroding to reports.