Jeanne Yeo, a New York-based attorney who specialized as a labor lawyer for more than 20 years with many of the big banks. She says, though, that banks use other forms of enforcement and that they can be in conflict with each other.

As it turns out, some of the banks she called had been using anti-bribery statutes to sanction their own employees and had used more aggressive measures with new subsidiaries, she said, such as sending letters to employees to inform them that their job was not safe. That practice was banned under a settlement of a class-action lawsuit in 2011 involving JPMorgan Chase and other banks and one of those banks.

Another reason the settlements may help banks is that many employees are getting new jobs, so they may not know that their current work conditions are against the law, said William Sweeny, senior counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group.

And even if these settlements do prompt some bankers to take accountability, the consequences could be significant for employees, Mr. Sweeny said. One of the biggest banks, Morgan Stanley, was recently forced to admit that it had paid out more than $16 billion since 2000 to settle charges of fraud and civil penalties for its handling of conflicts of interest that left employees as clients or shareholders of the institution. The company also is expected to pay nearly $30 billion in fines and penalties related to regulatory matters on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the regulator overseeing the bank. Mr. Sweeny said the settlements could result in even greater settlements against other banks or regulators that continue those practices.