Corruption

U.S. role in Afghanistan bank meltdown questioned
WASHINGTON – Late last month, a small team of U.S. Treasury Department experts rushed to Kabul ahead of a debacle Washington hoped wouldn’t happen but inadvertently helped create.

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But interviews with Afghan and American officials as well as Kabul Bank’s principal shareholders make clear that the United States played a key role in persuading Afghan authorities to finally rein in Kabul Bank at the end of August, a move that many Afghan businessmen viewed as long overdue but which also triggered a run on the bank.

The current mess and months of earlier indecision about how to deal with Kabul Bank illustrate the perils created by a deeply distrustful but mutually dependent relationship between Washington and Kabul. U.S. officials are wary of pushing the Afghan government too hard for change but also have an excuse for inaction on discomfiting, politically sensitive questions seen as best answered by the Afghans. At the same time, Afghan officials are heavily reliant on American aid and expertise, but often feel shielded from the need to make tough decisions on their own.

When depositors first started thronging Kabul Bank to pull their savings Sept. 1, Mahmoud Karzai, the president’s brother, demanded that the United States “do something” to bail out the bank. At the same time, he fumed that American officials had engineered the crisis at Kabul Bank so as to hurt his brother.

In the end, Kabul Bank might have been saved, or at least given a temporary reprieve, by divine intervention: A long holiday to mark the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, prevented depositors from yanking their funds. When the bank reopened for business this week, much of the previous panic had subsided.



Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/09/19/1347556/us-role-in-afghanistan-bank-meltdown.html#ixzz0zywpQ18N

Soros Insider-Trading Case to Be Reviewed by European Human Rights Court

Billionaire investor George Soros won a bid to have the European Court of Human Rights review his 2002 French conviction over insider-trading of shares in Societe Generale SA.

The human rights assembly notified Soros, 80, that it will not hold a hearing and will rule on the complaint based on submissions by the parties, Ron Soffer, a Paris-based attorney for Soros, said in a telephone interview.

“We hope that the court will issue a final ruling in the same spirit and are certain that the conviction will be overturned as a result,” said Soffer, who’s working on the complaint with London lawyer Anthony Lester.

Soros was convicted of insider trading and ordered to repay 2.2 million euros ($2.9 million) he’d made from the 1988 shares purchase after a Paris court found he’d acted with the knowledge that the bank might be a takeover target.

Soros turned to the human rights tribunal in December 2006 after he lost his appeal to the Cour de Cassation, France’s top court, which quashed the fine while upholding the conviction. Soros claims the law was vague and that prosecutors took too long to bring him to trial.

Soros’s complaint concerning the clarity of the French rules at the time “raises serious questions of fact and law” and requires “a thorough examination,” the Strasbourg-based human rights court said in an e-mailed statement.

Too Unclear

French stock market regulators didn’t pursue Soros, saying insider trading laws were too unclear to determine whether he’d broken them.

“When the authorities in charge of the stock exchange consider officially that the law is not sufficiently clear, the citizen cannot be expected to have a better understanding of the law than the authorities,” Soffer said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-15/soros-insider-trading-case-to-be-reviewed-by-european-human-rights-court.html

Interesting Rothschild linked to Anglo Irish bank, Societe Generale of France, and Banco Santander

N.M. Rothschild & Sons Handles “Bailouts” of Bankrupt Inter-Alpha Group of Banks

The London-headquartered N.M. Rothschild was hired by the Irish government to handle the “bailout” of its troubled banks, including both the bankrupt Anglo Irish Bank (which the Irish Finance Ministry has asked the EU for permission to shut down), and Inter-Alpha member Allied Irish Bank (AIB), which N.M. Rothschild suggested be saved by dividing it into a small “good” bank and a larger “bad” bank at Irish taxpayers’ expense.

N.M. Rothschild, the London arm of the infamous Venetian banking family, would appear to be the case officer for protecting the bankrupt Inter-Alpha banks from the catastrophe they worked so hard to create. In addition to AIB, it has helped arrange the rescue of four other Inter-Alpha banks: ING of the Netherlands, KBC of Belgium, Nordea of Scandinavia, and Societe Generale of France. A former N.M. Rothschild board member, Lord Miner, was appointed to oversee the banks—including Inter-Alpha flagship Royal Bank of Scotland—nationalized by the British government in an early phase of the systemic, economic collapse, forecast only by Lyndon LaRouche. We also strongly suspect Rothschild used its influence to get the European Central Bank to loan significant amounts of money to the equally bankrupt, but not admittedly so Banco Santander. As if that weren’t enough, four of the Inter-Alpha banks—RBS, Santander, Societe Generale, and ING—directly received U.S. taxpayer money through the corrupt AIG “backdoor bailout” facility, and a fifth recipient, Dresdner, was purchased by Inter-Alpha’s Commerzbank at roughly the same time. It helps to have low friends in high places, especially when you are hopelessly insolvent.
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15751

inter alpha group are the mosty dangerous wankers bankers on earth..

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/inter-alpha-group-rothschilds-weapon-for-currency-wars/

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/lyndon-larouche-shut-down-the-rothschildinter-alpha-looting-of-australia/

Vatican Expresses Surprise at Money-Laundering Probe

The Holy See said its financial transactions were transparent and expressed “surprise” after the Vatican Bank and its chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi were targeted for alleged violations of money-laundering laws.

“It is well known that the authorities of the Holy See have frequently manifested a clear desire for full transparency regarding the financial operations of the Institute for Works of Religion,” or IOR, as the Vatican Bank is called, the Vatican said today in an e-mailed statement.

Italian police today temporarily froze 23 million euros ($30 million) from an account registered to the IOR as Rome prosecutors probe Gotti Tedeschi for alleged violation of money- laundering laws, Italian media including Ansa news agency reported, without citing anyone.

The Holy See expressed “surprise” and “bewilderment” at the operation, and has “full confidence” in Gotti Tedeschi. The 65-year-old, who is also a professor of financial ethics at Milan’s Catholic University, was appointed in September 2009.

The Vatican Bank, after a series of scandals including involvement in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s, is under pressure to adopt new financial standards following a 2009 push by the Group of 20 nations for greater transparency. The IOR has been working “for some time” with the Bank of Italy and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development “for the Holy See’s inclusion in the so-called White List,” according to the statement.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-21/vatican-expresses-surprise-at-money-laundering-probe.html

The Vatican Bank Has a New Laissez-Faire President: Ettore Gotti Tedeschi

Gotti Tedeschi has five children, “all from the same mother,” he specifies. He lives in the countryside of Piacenza, where he was born 64 years ago, in Pontenure, not from from the Po river. He gets up very early in the morning, like a monk. In his BMW, he gets to Milan by dawn. He reads the newspapers in his office as president for Italy of Banco Santander, the biggest private bank in Europe, owned by a lay Spanish family, the Botíns. Then he goes to Mass, every morning, without fail.

He teaches financial ethics at the Catholic University of Milan. But he is also a board member of Banca San Paolo in Turin and of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, the operational wing of the treasury ministry.

On September 23, while the Vatican was making public his appointment as the new president of the IOR, Gotti Tedeschi was in Rome for a decisive meeting of the Cassa, to approve a 50 billion euro infrastructure and residential construction project. The Cassa Depositi e Prestiti is the pet project of treasury minister Giulio Tremonti, for whom Gotti Tedeschi is an advisor “on economic, financial, and ethical problems in international systems,” a post instituted specifically for him.

Before his appointment, Gotti Tedeschi had never set foot in the IOR, or even paid any attention to it. But he had already been at home at the Vatican for some time. Secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone had asked for his help last year, to straighten out the financial management of the Vatican’s central administration, which had a shortfall of more than 15 million euro in 2008.

The cure seems to have worked. A culprit of the mismanagement, the secretary general of the administration, Bishop Renato Boccardo, was sent away to be bishop of Spoleto and Norcia. He had aspired to one of the top nunciature positions, and because of this had even turned down the see of Vienna. In his place now is Carlo Maria Viganò, from Lombardy, who will soon rise to the highest position of the central administration, replacing Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo.

Gotti Tedeschi was formed as a banker in the American McKinsey school of international finance. As a Catholic, he converted from “superficial” to fervent in the 1960′s, under the spiritual direction of the traditionalist thinker Giovanni Cantoni. The books that revealed his thought to the general public are “Denaro e Paradiso [Money and Paradise],” published in 2004, with a preface by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, and “Spiriti animali. La concorrenza giusta [Animal Spirits: The Right Kind of Competition],” published by Università Bocconi and with a preface by Alessandro Profumo, president of the largest Italian bank, Unicredit.

But after this there were other publications that were less prominent, but no less revealing. In 2007, Gotti Tedeschi, the most Catholic of the bankers, signed an ultraliberal manifesto in 13 points, spearheaded by the former secretary of the highly secularist radical party, Daniele Capezzone. The manifesto proposed a single 20 percent “flat tax,” presidential government according to the American or French model, tax credits for health care and education, the requirement that the public administrator pay for all damages incurred, the changing of the retirement age to 65, tax exemption for overtime work, the abolition of professional associations and of the legal status of study certificates.

Years ago, Gotti Tedeschi proposed awarding the Nobel prize in economics to John Paul II, for his encyclical “Centesimus Annus.” More recently, he nominated Benedict XVI for “Caritas in Veritate,” which he participated in writing.

He also wished the Nobel prize for English prime minister Gordon Brown, for supporting his ambitious proposal in “L’Osservatore Romano,” “advantageous” for all, of investment in poor countries, on behalf of the two or three billion people who are only waiting to improve their lives.

The IOR seems too narrow for a new president with such vast and explosive proposals. But the adventure has just begun.
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1340361?eng=y

Looks like they have a plan…Just a year ago Ettore Gotti Tedeschi took over.

Opus Dei ties:
Gotti Tedeschi was named chairman of the bank a year ago after serving as the head of Italian operations for Spain’s Banco Santander. A member of the conservative religious movement Opus Dei, Gotti Tedeschi frequently speaks out on the need for more morality in financing and is a very public cheerleader of Pope Benedict XVI’s finance-minded encyclical “Charity in Truth.”
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=2058368

Remember the prelate letter pointed out September 21...hmmm

On the 21st we will commemorate St. Matthew, one of the first Twelve, who according to tradition, after writing the Gospel that bears his name, suffered martyrdom in Persia.
http://www.opusdei.us/art.php?p=40217

so tedeschi is the martyr?

Securities Ruling Limits Claims of Fraud

The U.S. Supreme Court has given multinational companies a powerful new legal defense against fraud claims made by some of their investors.

The weapon for companies grows out of a June ruling that limits fraud claims in U.S. courts by private investors who bought shares on foreign stock exchanges.

The Supreme Court decided Australian shareholders who had purchased stock overseas in an Australian bank couldn’t bring securities-fraud claims in a U.S. court. In order to avoid “incompatibility with the applicable laws of other countries,” U.S. securities laws should govern only domestic stock purchases, the court concluded.

The ruling could save millions of dollars for companies such as BP PLC, which faces securities suits over the Gulf oil spill, securities attorneys said. A representative for BP didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about the merits of the claims.

At the same time, it means investors such as U.S. public pension funds could see limited recoveries in a number of pending securities actions, including against Toyota Motor Corp. related to its handling of sudden acceleration claims. A representative for Toyota didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about the merits of the claims.

Judges have been interpreting the ruling in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd. as preventing fraud claims in U.S. courts by any investor—either from the U.S. or abroad—who purchased shares on foreign exchanges.

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The Supreme Court has also issued rulings that make it harder for shareholders to prove they were damaged by alleged fraud and that limit shareholders’ rights to sue accountants, lawyers and others involved in alleged fraud.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703694204575518301351548676.html

The big guy wins...always

always..

Serious Fraud Office promises crackdown on firms offering bribes abroadWatchdog warns of zero-tolerance approach to even minor kickbacks under Bribery Act

The Serious Fraud Office is to crack down on multinationals that bribe foreign officials or offer lavish hospitality to win lucrative overseas contracts.

SFO investigators will adopt “a zero-tolerance approach” towards companies offering inducements or “kickbacks” to foreign governments in return for preferential treatment. Behind the crackdown is Britain’s new Bribery Act, which comes into force in April.

There could be a rise in prosecutions, SFO officials warn, if firms fail to adhere to the principles of the act, which was drawn up by the former Labour government after the SFO’s decision to abandon an inquiry into BAE Systems’ £43bn al-Yamamah arms deals with Saudi Arabia. The case was dropped in 2006, despite a long-running corruption investigation, after the then prime minister Tony Blair intervened.

The head of the World Bank’s anti-corruption unit, Leonard McCarthy, met the SFO’s director, Richard Alderman, last month to discuss strengthening co-operation between the two agencies.

McCarthy said the Bank wanted to work with the SFO to ensure that funds stolen from developing countries were repatriated. The Bank can bar companies guilty of corruption from securing future work in emerging economies. “We need a few decisions. We need to inject some action,” he said on Friday.

The Bribery Act replaces Britain’s patchwork of late 19th-century statutes and 20th-century common law, which has made it difficult for the authorities to secure successful prosecutions.

For the first time, any company with British offices or owning a UK subsidiary will be subject to the act, and for the first time the SFO will not have to prove intent by a board’s directors – merely that fraud has been committed. A company whose overseas agents, suppliers or joint venture partners are involved in fraud will be held liable. The only defence for a company is to show that it has rigorous anti-bribery systems in place.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/oct/10/serious-fraud-office-bribery-crackdown

For the first time, any company with British offices or owning a UK subsidiary will be subject to the act, and for the first time the SFO will not have to prove intent by a board’s directors – merely that fraud has been committed.

Little-Known Record Firm Faces Foreclosure Challenges

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Challenges to the role of a little-known but influential mortgage-record service are emerging as the latest headache for banks in the battle over foreclosure proceedings.

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, is owned by some of the nation’s biggest banks and mortgage companies, including Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C), HSBC Holdings plc (HBC), Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC). It was created to streamline legal record keeping for mortgage sales and securitization.

Now, critics and homeowners facing foreclosure are increasingly challenging, among other things, MERS’ role and legal standing in home foreclosures where it acts as legal representative of the mortgage holder. MERS has fought and won legal challenges in the past to its role. But the nationwide epidemic of foreclosures in the wake of the housing collapse will present it with a wave of challenges unlike any it has seen previously.

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R.K. Arnold, chief executive of MERS, told Dow Jones in an interview on Sunday, “There is no doubt there will be more litigation” against his organization. But MERS, he said, has already won thousands of cases challenging its legal standing (only losing some due to procedural slips.) Of the new suits, “We will win them all,” Arnold said. “What we won’t do is settle; that’s our firm’s policy.”

MERS saves banks money because it eliminates paperwork. When mortgages or mortgage servicing rights change hands, as happens frequently in the mortgage business, MERS stands in for the owners and servicers in county land records. About half of the nation’s mortgages are under such arrangement with MERS, Arnold said.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101010-704414.html

MERS saves banks money because it eliminates paperwork

About MERS

MERS was created by the mortgage banking industry to streamline the mortgage process by using electronic commerce to eliminate paper. Our mission is to register every mortgage loan in the United States on the MERS® System.

Beneficiaries of MERS include mortgage originators, servicers, warehouse lenders, wholesale lenders, retail lenders, document custodians, settlement agents, title companies, insurers, investors, county recorders and consumers.

MERS acts as nominee in the county land records for the lender and servicer. Any loan registered on the MERS® System is inoculated against future assignments because MERS remains the nominal mortgagee no matter how many times servicing is traded. MERS as original mortgagee (MOM) is approved by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, FHA and VA, California and Utah Housing Finance Agencies, as well as all of the major Wall Street rating agencies.
http://www.mersinc.org/about/index.aspx

MERS Executive Team
http://www.mersinc.org/about/exec.aspx#

MERS Board of Directors
http://www.mersinc.org/about/bod.aspx

MERS was created by the mortgage banking industry to streamline the mortgage process by using electronic commerce to eliminate paper.

Looks like the classic “pretend to fail”…I hope stuxnet doesnt hit their server.

The First Domino: Foreclosure Fraud and the “Invisible Bailout”

The foreclosure fraud scandal is a big deal (or a big “effin’” deal, as Joe Biden might say). But its real significance is an even bigger deal. Foreclosure fraud is one domino, and if it falls others will follow. The result could be an end to the “invisible bailout” – the one you never hear about, the one that forces millions of people to subsidize bad lending practices in order to prop up Wall Street.

The invisible bailout is the reason why the government isn’t pushing to freeze foreclosures. If the foreclosure process is halted and lending practices are thoroughly investigated, it might eventually force bankers to own up to their own lawlessness – and write down billions of dollars in artificially inflated assets. How are they going to pay themselves record bonuses if that happens?

How much could that cost? One in four US homes is underwater, which means that proper accounting would require a writedown of enormous proportions. And, as the AP reported, “forecasters at John Burns Real Estate Consulting predicted that 41 percent of residential sales this year would be on distressed properties.” The banks have been counting on that revenue.

Write down one mortgage in four? Halt nearly half of all home sales?

Now that’s a big effin’ deal.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/the-first-domino-foreclos_b_760215.html

it is a big fucking deal

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/bank-of-america-indefinitely-freezes-foreclosures-financial-hand-grenade-keiser-says-gold-to-1400-today/

Florida Attorney General Subpoenas Lender Processing Services

Florida's attorney general's office has subpoenaed Lender Processing Services (LPS), a company deeply mired in the foreclosure mess, as part of its investigation into potentially flawed foreclosure paperwork. The subpoena, dated Wednesday, appears to be the first step in a civil -- not criminal -- investigation of LPS.

It's the latest piece of very bad news for LPS, which is currently facing two class-actions alleging its business model is illegal. The AG's office is investigating the possibility that LPS and its DocX subsidiary created "forged, incorrectly and illegally executed, false and misleading" documents to accelerate foreclosures.

"These documents are used in court cases as 'real' documents of assignment and presented to the court as so, when it actually appears that they are fabricated in order to meet the demands of the institution that does not, in fact, have the necessary documentation to foreclose according to law," according to the AG's website.

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The Florida AG's office has requested a broad range of LPS documents, including every "network agreement" that LPS has signed with a Florida law firm; all policies and procedures manuals or training materials, including those related to drafting or signing foreclosure and mortgage documents; any price lists LPS gives customers; its financial transactions with title companies, process servers and recording services in connection with foreclosures; and similar documents involving the four foreclosure law firms the Florida AG is currently investigating: The Law Offices of David J. Stern, Florida Default Law Group, Shapiro & Fishman, and the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/real-estate/florida-attorney-general-subpoenas-lender-processing-services/19673253/