Quote:

GUILTY BANK FRAUDSTERS: Setting aside' moves on to facing difficult truths'.

BY JOHN WARD NOVEMBER 28, 2013 BORIS JOHNSON 'STUPID' GEORGE OSBORNE RBS CROOKERY STEPHEN HESTER VINCE CABLE HYPOCRITE

Stephen Hester, Piggy Banker

Is any British banker ever going to jail?

LATE FLASH: "NO" AFFIRMS ROSS McEWAN

Some time ago at the dedicated Slogpage Pester Hester, I posted variously about the obvious anti-SME fraud taking place as a matter of routine at the State-owned bank RBS. By that time, a dedicated fighting front of SMEs had already been organised to both forensically examine and then prosecute the mobster tactics being employed to bankrupt SME borrowers and seize their assets. It seems to have been part of a desperate plan to reconfigure and repair RBS's Nottingham Lace balance sheets.
From longstanding and reliable sources within Government both at the time and earlier, it was alleged to me that this was being done with the knowledge of Treasury Mandarins. The then CEO Stephen Hester was described to me as "the big hero around here", a man able to expect warm handshakes and much back-slapping during his visits there. I posted about this too, alleging again that a State-owned bank was engaging in openly fraudulent activities to save what was left of its neck after Freddie Goodwin had finished wringing it.
It would be odd if the Chancellor didn't at least hear about what was going on; and in his capacity as Business Minister, it would be bordering on ridiculous if Vince Cable was unaware of developments. But on challenging RBS to answer the charges they now (at last) face in a report, Mr Cable was reported earlier this week to have commented, "Some of these allegations are very serious and I am waiting for an urgent response as to what actions have been taken. I am however confident that the new management of RBS is aware of this history and is determined to turn RBS into a bank that will support the growth of small and medium sized businesses."
In what I can only describe as an innocently contrite response, this "new" management replied by saying that "Facing up to these mistakes has been a difficult, but essential part of making RBS a safe and strong bank once again".
So that's alright then, let's put all this unpleasantness behind us. Onward and upward.
These people become more deliberately (an irritatingly) insouciant with every week. Mr Cable may be waiting for a response, but quite a few of us out here in the cold new world are waiting for Plod to do something, for arrests to be made, for people to be charged, and for the entire reign of Hester to be examined in minute detail.
I'm saddened to hear that things have been difficult for the bank, but I'd be less sad if I thought that those who were (and still are) around to commit these crimes at a middle to senior management level might about to experience the rough and tumble of dawn raids.
We're also waiting for an adequate Labour Opposition response. So far, shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna has commented, "The claims made by Lawrence Tomlinson against RBS' Global Restructuring Group are extremely serious indeed (sic). To artificially distress otherwise successful businesses in order to seize their assets and profit would be utterly scandalous and deplorable. It's right that the FCA [Financial Conduct Authority] and PRA [Prudential Regulation Authority] look into the claims as a matter of urgency."
And that's it, is it? Umunna was around when this was going on: did he help any of the support groups? Did Ed Miliband call for Hester's resignation and investigation? Did Ed Balls harass George Osborne as to why Hester suddenly became an unperson once the sale/flotation of RBS had been mooted? WTF was the FCA doing while all this grand larceny was going on? Did they do a Co-Op on it? Sod the new regulatory window-dressing looking into this "as a matter of urgency", why aren't they on the case already?
Where was the media in all this? Absent, sitting and uncounted….as usual. No outcry about the activities, no calls for an enquiry when Hester was abruptly let go'. "Don't rock the boat, be nice to bankers, we mustn't damage world confidence in British banking". What a sick joke: you might as well ask that we all love taxi manufacturers who bend emissions data, and then acquit them of any guilt. Oh sorry, I forgot: we already did that.
We The People own 81% of this bank. We The People are about to sell it off to more nasty people who are not The People….as we have just done with the Cooperative Bank. Those people will somehow manage to avoid buying the toxic bits that We The People will be left paying for into eternity.
But don't worry about it. Just keep on getting by. Show em we can take it. Business as usual. Fine fighting British spirit. Blah blah Blah Blurb Bloris Boris**…..

Related from yesterday: Who should really be coughing up for this mess?

** Boris Johnson speech says some people "just too stupid to get on in life". Silly people: so dumb they can't even work out how to cheat.

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RBS BONUSES: How to reward failure and fraud with half a billion quid.

BY JOHN WARD DECEMBER 2, 2013 RBS FRAUD REWARDED WITH BONUSES VINCE CABLE MUST ACT TO CAN RBS BONUSES WE OWN 80% OF RBS

Time for Cable to walk the walk

You may remember from previous Slogposts that last week, RBS CEO Ross McEwan said: "It is important to note that the most serious allegation that has been made is that RBS conducted a systematic' effort to profit on the back of our customers when they were in financial distress. We do not believe that this is the case, but it has nonetheless done serious damage to RBS's reputation. No evidence has been provided for that allegation to the bank."
In fact a huge body of evidence has been produced. To take one of (literally) hundreds of RBS examples, in November last year the Chemist & Druggist reported how Four more pharmacy owners have berated the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for its treatment of their businesses, after it allegedly undervalued pharmacies by as much as 66 per cent and created losses of up to £700,000′. This was the standard MO of Hester's Horribles throughout the years of RBS embezzlement: undervalue an asset at the last moment, and then repossess it on the grounds of inability to pay the loan just granted.
But if you think that's a case in a million I've alighted upon to suit my agenda, then try this one on for size:Bully-Banks was created in December 2011 by a small group of business owners in the UK each of whom had been mis-sold an IRSA, to co-ordinate complaints by the owners of small and medium sized business against the conduct of Banks when mis-selling Interest Rate Swap Agreements ("IRSAs"). As of the end of January 2013, Bully-Banks had over two thousand members. The members are the owners of over one thousand small and medium sized businesses in the UK all of which have been mis-sold an IRSA by their bank.
In a Slog investigation of the previous month, other examples were put forward. Note by the way that RBS made liberal use of super-injunctions to keep a lot of this out of the public eye. Also note that since that post, Bully-Banks has doubled in size.
But Ross McEwan says there is no evidence to support the allegations. And so now comes the coup de grace from these crocodiles whose calumny and cash-obsessions are infinite. Insiders at the 81% State owned bank revealed over the weekend that it is to pay out a total of £500m in bonuses this year. During this year, the bank lost around £5.2 bn.
The Telegraph reports that The pool would have been higher, but £300m was deducted to pay for fines related to the global Libor-rigging scandal.' Oh I say, what deuced rotten luck.
So there we are, people:failure and fraud are the new honest success. Just ask Grant Shapps.
On second thoughts, don't ask Grant Shapps anything he'll only lie to you. Instead, email the Business Minister Vince Cable and demand these bonuses be pulled….on behalf of the 80% of shareholders who do not think they are in any way deserved. His MP address is cablev@parliament.uk, where I suspect there is less chance of your outrage simply disappearing into Sir Humphrey's pocket before it gets to Mr Livewire in his office at the Business Ministry.

• 
  
• • Graeme Wearden
    
  • theguardian.com, Wednesday 4 December 2013 08.46 GMT
    

Quote:Banks fined record €1.7bn over benchmark interest rate rigging cartel

RBS, Citigroup and JP Morgan among banks fined by European commission for colluding to fix yen Libor and Euribor rates

• Jill Treanor
  
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 4 December 2013 11.54 GMT
  
• Jump to comments (361)
  

The European commission said three banks and one broker had refused to settle on other claims. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA

The already battered reputation of banks took an expensive new hit yesterday when the European commission slapped a record €1.7bn (£1.4bn) fine on six firms including the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland for colluding to fix key interest rate benchmarks.
Joaquín Almunia, the European competition commissioner, warned that further fines were on the cards as three more banks, including HSBC, and one broker have refused to settle the long-running investigation by Brussels.
He revealed that the authorities were in the process of unmasking a fresh scandal in the currency markets that could further damage the industry and add to the vast sums banks have had to pay for their mistakes since the financial meltdown.
"This will not be the end of the story, neither for interest-rate derivatives nor for the manipulation of benchmarks," Almunia said. "One of the areas where we have received information that we are looking at very, very carefully is forex [foreign exchange]."
The latest fines the first levied on a financial cartel by Europe since the banking crisis began take the total penalties for rigging Libor and other key interest-rate benchmarks to £3.5bn.
Research by the London School of Economics (LSE) to be published next week will put a total of £100bn on the costs of misconduct for 10 major banks, including RBS, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group, in the five years to the end of 2012. That total has now risen by £30bn, according to an analysis for the Guardian by MSCI ESG Research.
Roger McCormick, the LSE professor who led the research team, said: "To put that into context, the one year's budget of the 24 richest nations for international aid is £80bn, and the national health service budget is £100bn to £110bn every year."
Yesterday's announcement saw two US banks, Citigroup and JP Morgan, receive their first fines over the interest-rate rigging scandal, while the other banks received fresh penalties on top of those already imposed by regulators. Barclays, the first bank penalised for rigging Libor when it was fined £290m in June last year, was also part of the Euribor cartel, the European equivalent of Libor. However, this time the UK bank blew the whistle. In return for that help Barclays was let off another £570m fine.
Similarly, the Swiss bank UBS escaped a £2.1bn fine by telling regulators about the cartel that had been rigging yen Libor. It had already paid £940m in fines related to manipulating the London Libor rate.
Almunia said: "What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other."
The biggest fine £600m was on Deutsche Bank, putting pressure on the Treasury minister Sajid Javid, who was previously head of global credit trading for Asia and had seat on the board of Deutsche's international operations division until he left in 2009.
Javid said last night that while at the German bank he was not responsible for the departments hit by the fine and as a minister he had not held any talks with Brussels or any of the firms involved.
The commission also inflicted more pain on RBS, which has suspended four traders and will now pay another £320m on top of £390m already handed over to US and UK regulators. The new fine adds to its public image problems following a systems meltdown this week and recent allegations, which it denies, that it has abused its small business customers.
Its chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, said: "Today is another sobering reminder of those past failings and nobody should be in any doubt about how seriously we have taken this issue. The RBS board and new management team condemn the behaviour of the individuals who were involved in these activities."
The Euribor investigation focused on the period between September 2005 and May 2008 and the settlement involved Barclays, Deutsche Bank, RBS and Société Générale. In yen Libor, the banks involved were UBS, RBS, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and JP Morgan. The broker RP Martin was also involved, and fined for using its contacts with banks involved in settling Libor.
Other banks yet to agree fines for fixing Euribor rates apart from HSBC are Crédit Agricole and JP Morgan. The money broker Icap, run by former Conservative party treasurer Michael Spencer, is still facing penalties for rigging yen Libor.
Almunia said: "Today's decision sends a clear message that the commission is determined to fight and sanction these cartels in thefinancial sector."
Matt Moscardi, senior analyst at MSCI ESG Research, questioned whether the penalties were as hefty as they first appeared. "If you look at RBS it is the equivalent to its revenues for five weeks. That's not much. If you think about the manipulation of a global interest rate where several trillion dollars are priced to it, you'd think they'd be more punitive."

Judge Blasts Feds for Failure to Go After Wall Street Fraudsters

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Posted on Dec 17, 2013

Too big to jail, indeed.
U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff has written a scathing indictment of the federal government's approach to prosecuting Wall Street finance and banking executives, concluding that timidity, lack of resources, and a desire by individual prosecutors to pluck the low hanging fruit of fraud cases has left the country's top financial wheeler-dealers unscathed by the likely crimes that seized up the world economy.
Particularly galling, Rakoff writes in The New York Review of Books, is the sense among Justice Department officials that some financial institutions are too big to be disciplined. "This excusesometimes labeled the too big to jail' excuseis disturbing, frankly, in what it says about the department's apparent disregard for equality under the law," wrote Rakoff, who previously rankled Justice officials and corporate executives by refusing to approve civil settlements over corporate wrongdoing that did not include an admission of guilt.
And there likely were many crimes committed in the financial collapse. While pointedly saying he has no opinion on whether crimes occurred, Rakoff cites the findings of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that fraud lurked behind the transactions that collapsed the economy. Yet U.S. Justice Department officials "have been more circumspect," and point to three factors in their decisions not to prosecute: Proving fraud is hard; the sophisticated buyers of ill-fated mortgage-backed securities should have known better; and that going after the crooks could destabilize the economy. From the article:

Without multiplying examples further, my point is that the Department of Justice has never taken the position that all the top executives involved in the events leading up to the financial crisis were innocent; rather it has offered one or another excuse for not criminally prosecuting themexcuses that, on inspection, appear unconvincing. So, you might ask, what's really going on here? I don't claim to have any inside information about the real reasons why no such prosecutions have been brought, but I take the liberty of offering some speculations.
At the outset, however, let me say that I completely discount the argument sometimes made that no such prosecutions have been brought because the top prosecutors were often people who previously represented the financial institutions in question and/or were people who expected to be representing such institutions in the future: the so-called "revolving door." In my experience, most federal prosecutors, at every level, are seeking to make a name for themselves, and the best way to do that is by prosecuting some high-level person. While companies that are indicted almost always settle, individual defendants whose careers are at stake will often go to trial. And if the government wins such a trial, as it usually does, the prosecutor's reputation is made. My point is that whatever small influence the "revolving door" may have in discouraging certain white-collar prosecutions is more than offset, at least in the case of prosecuting high-level individuals, by the career-making benefits such prosecutions confer on the successful prosecutor.

So why no prosecutions? Rakoff blames it on shifted priorities after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the FBI's financial-frauds staff dropped from around 1,000 people to about 120; a decentralization of prosecutions to regional offices with insufficient expertise in the complex world of banking and finance and different priorities; the federal government's role in shoring up post-collapse banks and financial institutions blurred the lines; and a policy shift from prosecuting individuals in favor of corporations in the belief that it would be easier to change corporate culture.
That last factor seems the most significant. An accused corporation can negotiate a settlement, pay a fine, promise not to sin again, then pass along the costs to consumers and shareholders and maybe fire a subordinate executive or two for public relations value. Meanwhile, the individuals responsibleor who most benefited from willful ignorancepay no penalty for their crimes.

I suggest that this is not the best way to proceed. Although it is supposedly justified because it prevents future crimes, I suggest that the future deterrent value of successfully prosecuting individuals far outweighs the prophylactic benefits of imposing internal compliance measures that are often little more than window-dressing. Just going after the company is also both technically and morally suspect. It is technically suspect because, under the law, you should not indict or threaten to indict a company unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that some managerial agent of the company committed the alleged crime; and if you can prove that, why not indict the manager? And from a moral standpoint, punishing a company and its many innocent employees and shareholders for the crimes committed by some unprosecuted individuals seems contrary to elementary notions of moral responsibility.
These criticisms take on special relevance, however, in the instance of investigations growing out of the financial crisis, because, as noted, the Department of Justice's position, until at least recently, is that going after the suspect institutions poses too great a risk to the nation's economic recovery. So you don't go after the companies, at least not criminally, because they are too big to jail; and you don't go after the individuals, because that would involve the kind of years-long investigations that you no longer have the experience or the resources to pursue.

It's a significant argument Rakoff makes. The New York Times "Sidebar" columnist Adam Liptak said Rakoff accused the government of failing "in its rudimentary responsibilities, offering excuses instead of action." He asked Rakoff what prompted the essay, an unusual step for a sitting judge.

"As a judge, I got to see many cases that grew out of the financial crisis and to see situations that gave me pause," he said. "When I added my own background as both a prosecutor and defense counsel, I was struck by how things were proceeding in a different way than they had in the past.
"That caused me to think about it more than I otherwise would have," he said, "and I thought my views as a citizen might commend themselves to others."

One hopes his fellow citizensespecially those in charge of regulating the financial world and prosecuting its criminalspays attention.
Posted by Scott Martelle.

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Defaulting banks - where will it stop? - David Guyatt - 18-12-2013

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Judge Blasts Feds for Failure to Go After Wall Street Fraudsters

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Posted on Dec 17, 2013

Too big to jail, indeed.
U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff has written a scathing indictment of the federal government's approach to prosecuting Wall Street finance and banking executives, concluding that timidity, lack of resources, and a desire by individual prosecutors to pluck the low hanging fruit of fraud cases has left the country's top financial wheeler-dealers unscathed by the likely crimes that seized up the world economy.
Particularly galling, Rakoff writes in The New York Review of Books, is the sense among Justice Department officials that some financial institutions are too big to be disciplined. "This excusesometimes labeled the too big to jail' excuseis disturbing, frankly, in what it says about the department's apparent disregard for equality under the law," wrote Rakoff, who previously rankled Justice officials and corporate executives by refusing to approve civil settlements over corporate wrongdoing that did not include an admission of guilt.

For me, most of those reasons given by the judge for not prosecuting financial bigwigs are nonsense. The real and only reason is their power.

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Defaulting banks - where will it stop? - Peter Lemkin - 12-01-2014

Now We Know: JPMorgan Chase Is Worse Than Enron

Saturday, 11 January 2014 09:12 By Richard Eskow

It's beginning to look as if JPMorgan Chase has had a hand in every major banking scandal of the last decade. In fact, it's the Zelig of Wall Street crime. Take a snapshot of any major bank fraud and chances are you'll see JPMorgan Chase staring out at you from the frame.
Foreclosure fraud, investor fraud, cheating customers, market manipulation, LIBOR … and now, the coup de grâce to JPM's tattered reputation: a $2 billion fine for closing its eyes and covering up as Bernie Madoff literally bilked widows and orphans, along with a lot of other families and charities. (Here's a list of investors.)
Does Jamie Dimon, the bank's CEO, still think people don't say enough nice things about him? Do his friends?
More importantly, how does the largest bank in the country (measured in assets) get away with being worse than Enron? That one's easy: By being the largest bank in the country.
Guilty as Sin
JPMorgan Chase was hit with a "deferred prosecution agreement" for criminal behavior in this latest settlement, which basically means they won't be prosecuted as long as they honor the agreement and keep admitting to their own wrongdoing. As the New York Times notes, this kind of arrangement is "nearly unheard-of for a giant American bank," is "typically employed only when misconduct is extreme," and "underscores the magnitude of the case against JPMorgan."
According to publicly available information, the case against JPMorgan Chase is extremely damning. Even after highly suspicious facts came to light about the Madoff operation, JPM continued to package and sell Madoff-fed funds to its customers. It failed to report him to the authorities even after concluding that he was engaged in massive fraud.
No wonder JPM tried to block investigators from probing its handling of the Madoff account. According to Newsweek, the Justice Department even shielded the bank from obstruction charges.
Worse Than Enron
There's no question about it: JPMorgan Chase is worse than Enron. It's true that Enron's energy market manipulations were horrible. Enron executives and employees deprived people of their life savings, drove up the price of a vital public utility, and concealed their crimes with all the wiliness of history's worst master conspirators.
But JPMorgan Chase did everything Enron did and much, much more. Consider:
A few weeks ago JPM paid $13 billion to settle well-documented charges of massive and widespread foreclosure fraud. Although that was the largest fine paid by a corporation in American history, there's a compelling argument that it should have been larger as much as 22 times larger.
JPM paid $296.9 million for lying to investors about the payment status and hence, the investment quality of its mortgage-backed securities.
JPM paid more than a third of a billion dollars to settle charges that it bilked customers by charging them for credit monitoring services it never provided.
JPM agreed to pay between $1.8 billion and $4.5 billion, depending on how you tally the cost, for illegally foreclosing on American families and throwing them out of their homes.
JPM paid another $56 million for cheating active-duty service members and their families, and for illegally foreclosing on them as well.
JPM paid $228 million for rigging the bidding for 93 municipal bond transactions in 31 states. (You know those cities that supposedly can't honor their pension agreements with retired workers? That's the kind of client they cheated here.)
JPM paid $410 million to settle charges related to its rigging of electricity prices, which is what Enron did.
JPM has paid multiple fines and settlements over the "London whale" case, in which traders sought to manipulate market prices, engaged in unlawful "reckless conduct" (while CEO Dimon bragged about the bank's risk management and "fortress balance sheet"), then unlawfully concealed their behavior. There is no evidence that any investigation sought to determine how high the cover-up went. We do know that Dimon told investors the case was "a tempest in a teapot" after privately being told that losses were running in the billions.
JPM paid $1.2 billion for colluding with credit card companies and other institutions to rig merchants' credit prices.
JPM has paid two major fines for illegally investing with customers' money.
Den of Thieves
All in all, JPMorgan Chase has paid $20 billion in fines in the last year alone. But none of these fines were personally charged to the executives who committed the crimes. Instead, they were paid by shareholders some of whom were also bilked by the executives in question.
What's more, most (if not all) of these fines are tax-deductible. That means that taxpayers will take a hit for JPM's criminality. Even the Enron guys didn't think of that.
Do some good people work at JPMorgan Chase? Of course. I have a couple friends there myself, and they're honorable people. But they're living in a nest of fraudsters. Either CEO Dimon thinks that's just fine, or he's not competent enough to clean the place out and should be fired forthwith.
It's Who You Know …
How does the JPM Gang get away with all of this fraud? One simple answer is: Access. Political access. Even Bernie Madoff had it. The Madoff family was heavily involved in SIFMA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a trade group with deep Washington DC connections. (Madoff's brother Peter was honored by SIFMA in 2006.)
Dimon's DC connections, of course, are the stuff of legend. They extend to members of both parties. Until scandal completely scarred the bank's reputation, Dimon was routinely referred to as "the President's favorite banker." And as a high-powered Wall Street lawyer, Attorney General Eric Holder undoubtedly crossed paths with Dimon many times.
Our leaders insist that those personal connections carry no weight in their decision-making process. People are free to form their own opinions about that. The argument is also made, as the Attorney General did in a rare moment of candor, that some banks can't be indicted because that would put them in danger which, in turn, would pose a systemic risk to the global economy.
And yet nobody in the Administration is claiming that this is a problem, much less proposing solutions. Solutions are available: the breakup of systemically risky institutions or the indictment of individuals and not of institutions.
Unfortunately, nobody in the government seems very interested in solutions. They just keep making these deals, even when the malefactors involved are much, much worse than Enron.

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Defaulting banks - where will it stop? - David Guyatt - 13-01-2014

My two pence worth is that the whole Madoff story has been unreported and massively inaccurate in that reporting. It's a case of the old "lone banker" all over again, when it was even obvious from the dearth of proper reporting that all sorts of major banks, not just JPMorganChase, participated in full knowledge of what was really going on.

On the other matters, this story simply reinforces the view that it is the intrinsic power of major banks to avoid criminal prosecution by paying fines. This doesn't hurt those executives who are responsible for the illegalities, as it's not their money they're playing with anyway. And besides this few execs are ever forced to leave the bank as a consequence, or even miss out on their bonuses.

I liken this non-punishment punishment to the historic "whipping boy" - who always was a close boyhood friend of a son of a blue-blooded family. If the family son did something that was sufficiently wrong to deserve punishment, it was the boys friend who was whipped and beaten in his place - as noble blood could not be touched. One can immediately see how power complexes would arise because of this bollocks attitude.

And so it with bank today. They are free of blame or punishment.

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