Massive Bank and High Profile Resignations Across the World

[Sabrina]

http://the2012scenario.com/2012/06/f...e/#more-130977


Federal Reserve Audit Approved by US House Committee

2012 JUNE 28





Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Audit Approved by House Committee
By Stephen C. Webster, Raw Story – June 27, 2012

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/2...use-committee/

One of Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) lifelong policy goals is on the brink of becoming a reality.

In a nearly unanimous voice vote on Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee approved a bill that would require the U.S. Federal Reserve to conduct a first-ever complete audit of its books and divulge details about its monetary policy discussions. The bill is expected to be taken up by the full House of Representatives sometime next month.

Paul, a longtime critic of the Fed and fiat currencies in general, had previously supported an audit that became part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That audit required the Fed to disclose its lending practices during the 2008 financial crisis, revealing that the bank doled out more than $16 trillion in loans and assets swaps to financial institutions all over the world in an effort to stabilize global markets and keep credit flowing.

Paul, however, felt that the audit which ultimate cleared the U.S. Senate was a stripped down version of what he believes is needed, and most of his colleagues now agree. His bill has garnered an impressive bipartisan coalition of more than 257 co-sponsors — more than half the House — giving it enough votes to pass.

The Senate version, introduced by Paul’s son Rand (R-KY), faces a tougher road. All of its 20 co-sponsors are Republican, and it has been stuck in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, which is chaired by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD). He has not said whether the bill will be marked-up for debate.

[Sabrina]

More on latest banking scandal.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...re-plunge.html

Ed Miliband demands CRIMINAL probe into Barclays interest rate rigging scandal as £3.2bn is wiped off bank in share plunge

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond today faced demands for his resignation as shares in the bank slumped after it was fined a record £290million for rigging interest rates.

Labour leader Ed Miliband called for a criminal investigation into the scandal which is set to engulf a number of other top British banks.
Serious Fraud Office investigators are in talks with the City watchdog over the affair, Chancellor George Osborne said, while an ongoing US criminal probe helped increase demands for similar action this side of the Atlantic.

Barclays' shares closed 15.5 per cent lower at 165.6p today, wiping £3.2 billion from its value.

Mr Diamond has agreed to give up his bonus following the scandal, which involved Barclays and other banks fixing crucial interest rates to mask the scale of their bad debts.

But pressure is growing for him to quit, and the value of Barclays shares fell dramatically today at the prospect of future instability at Britain's third-largest bank.

full story at link

[Sabrina]

More on latest banking scandal. Now this WILL lead to 'high profile' resignations. THis is a big story. It's July (nearly). It's happening...Sab.

29 June




20 more banks were rigging interest rates: British bankers now facing criminal inquiry over scandal that was kept secret for years
Barclays shares drop 15 per cent as pressure on Diamond grows

George Osborne promises new criminal sanctions for market abusers

Hundreds of bankers across three continents are embroiled in the interest-rate fixing scandal that has left Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond fighting to save his job.

As pressure intensified on Britain’s highest paid banking boss to quit, MPs heard a string of other financial institutions across the world were under investigation.

At least 20 banks are believed to be under suspicion, with growing demands for a criminal investigation.



Barclays’ shares crashed by 15.5 per cent in a day as the implications sank in, wiping £3.7billion from its value, with other banks also hit.
Barclays has been fined £290million after devastating emails revealed that its traders manipulated the London Interbank Rate (Libor) – the rate at which banks lend money to each other.

Chancellor George Osborne told the Commons the exchanges ‘read like an epitaph to an age of irresponsibility’.


RBS, HSBC and Lloyds all named as under investigation as scandal widens


n the blackest day for Britain’s finance industry since the 2008 economic crisis:

Serious Fraud Office investigators were revealed to be in talks with financial watchdogs over the scandal
David Cameron and Ed Miliband piled pressure on Mr Diamond to resign

Barclays and other banks were braced for a damning verdict today in an official report on mis-selling of complex loans to 28,000 small firms

Mr Osborne promised new criminal sanctions for those guilty of market abuse

Downing Street faced a growing clamour for a judge-led public inquiry into the ethics of Britain’s banks

'Epitaph to an age of irresponsibility': George Osborne today briefed MPs in the Commons about the unfolding bank trading scandal


full story at link

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz1z9uKpdBQ

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

Not a resignation or arrest yet but a sort of prelude to it (maybe...)

House charges Holder with contempt of Congress
CBSNEWS: June 28, 2012 4:51 PM, Updated 5:35 p.m. ET

(CBS News) The House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress Thursday for failing to provide documents relating to the Fast and Furious gunwalking program.
The House took two votes, one on criminal contempt charges, which passed 255-67. The criminal contempt of Congress is likely not to go anywhere as the Justice Department, which Holder heads, is the department responsible for opening a criminal investigation.

Full story: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-...t-of-congress/

[Kimberley]

From BIX WEIR just now:

We are starting to see signs that there is massive chaos at the HUB of market rigging operations- the New York Federal Reserve. With the looming Fed audit vote in mid July, the Fed's ability to pull rabbits out of their hat to control the US Dollar is wobbling. With the dollar showing signs of instability (an instantaneous .50 drop last night and down 1.22 since yesterday) the Fed is helpless to continue their support operation.

With this in the background it was announced today that the Chief Market Rigger, Brian Sack, who was supposed to retire today is withdrawing his retirement...

Sack Withdraws Resignation, to Remain at NY Fed
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/...-fed-sack.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Brian Sack, who oversees the Federal Reserve's open market actions, and who was to leave the New York Fed bank on Friday, will instead stay on as senior advisor to President William Dudley.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced on Friday that Sack has withdrawn his resignation and starts the new position June 30. He will no longer be involved with the group that oversees market activities.
END

There are no accidents anymore. This is the planned destruction of the un-backed fiat monetary system which will destroy the Bad Guys, revive the US Gold Standard and return the US to a Constitutional Republic.

My birthday is next Wednesday (yep- I was born on the 4th of July and it's shaping up to be a real doozy of a firework show!

Stay buckled up.

Bix Weir

www.RoadtoRoota.com

[Alie]

Shocking Death of a Wall Street Trader at Court Yesterday

=========================================

http://www.businessinsider.com/micha...GEozGPTEKYszXA

[Alie]

Interesting from Reuters:


Big banks craft "living wills" IN CASE THEY FAIL

"(Reuters) - Five of the biggest banks in the United States are putting finishing touches on plans for going out of business as part of government-mandated contingency planning that could push them to untangle their complex operations.

The plans, known as living wills, are due to regulators no later than July 1 under provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law designed to end too-big-to-fail bailouts by the government. The living wills could be as long as 4,000 pages.

Since the law allows regulators to go so far as to order a bank to divest subsidiaries if it cannot plan an orderly resolution in bankruptcy, the deadline is pushing even healthy institutions to start a multi-year process to untangle their complex global operations, according to industry consultants."

There's more in link.

[Sabrina]

http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/d...62-green-light

David Wilcock's thoughts on Drakes announcement about imminent arrests.

[Sabrina]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18640916

30 JUne UK

Ministers to order Libor bank rate review


n independent review of the workings of the Libor inter-bank lending rate has been announced by the government in the wake of the Barclays fine.

Barclays was fined £290m ($450m) for attempting to manipulate the Libor, and other banks are being investigated.

Barclays boss Bob Diamond has been summoned to appear before the Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has called for a public inquiry into the customs and practices of the banking industry.

Earlier this week, the Financial Services Authority and US Department of Justice fined Barclays, and investigations are under way into HSBC, RBS, Citigroup and UBS.

The independent review, which will examine the future operation of Libor - the daily rate set by the British Bankers' Association (BBA) - will be established next week and report by the end of summer.

It will ensure amendments can be made to the Financial Services Bill which is currently going through Parliament. It will also examine whether to target institutions or individuals and whether to launch criminal prosecutions rather than impose fines.

Andrew Tyrie, the select committee chairman, said Mr Diamond's hearing would focus on the Libor scandal, which he described as "the most damaging I can recall".

"The public's trust in banks has been even further eroded. Restoring the reputational damage must begin immediately," Mr Tyrie added.

Barclays' chairman, Marcus Agius, will appear on Thursday.

'Corrupt elite' (interesting wording BBC)...

full story at link

[Alie]

From the Independant

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...t-7901949.html

Banking scandal: Greedy, shoddy, deceitful. A modern cesspit

It was a week of truly shocking revelations. Will the banks finally be brought to book for their behaviour?


The events of the past few days are proof that not all organised criminals go around carrying violin cases. Some sit jacketless in City offices, bent over computer screens, rigging interest rates. Others give their salesmen's smiles to small-scale entrepreneurs desperate for a loan, and make them buy products that are as much a swindle as a three-card trick. And, if there's the slightest whiff of official action that might cramp their style, there's always some big-shot to whisper to the Government: "That's a lovely economy you've got there. You wouldn't want it to have an accident, would you?" The voice of the protection racket down the ages.

If that reads like a caricature, it is more authentic than the portrait the banks paint of themselves in their multinational, happy-clappy TV advertising – actorly voiceovers oozing sincerity and shots of nicey-nicey advisers handing out financial sweeties. The reality for us ordinary customers is pin numbers, over-charging and calls to Delhi to speak to a man who says his name is Eric. The real money is made elsewhere.

While some bank staff (the disposable foot soldiers – Royal Bank of Scotland has made 36,000 of them redundant in the past five years) cash our cheques, the organisations themselves and their risk-takers operate on different streets, in different ways, and make telephone-numbers money.

We know that because we read of the banks' profits, their staff bonuses and the fancy cars and homes they buy with them. What most of us didn't know before 2007 was exactly how they made it. And neither did the Government. Like some corrupt Southern governor kept in office courtesy of subsidies from the local hoodlums, it took the money but didn't really want to know too much about how it was made. Best not to ask too closely.

But the banks over-reached themselves. They expanded too rapidly, and got their fingers into too many sweet pies. And in 2007 and 2008, their schemes began to unravel. We learnt about sub-prime mortgages, liars' loans, and derivatives where mad-money loans were carved up, repackaged, sold and re-sold so that any connection between borrower and the final lender was broken.

It sounds as crazy as tulip mania, but these, we were told, were the Masters of the Universe, super-clever people able to turn financial tap water into vintage wine, and our cash deposits and banked salaries into untold billions.

But how smart were they? We gradually discovered that, in the world of banking, there were entire continents of incompetence. An early example: banks' statistical modelling assured them that a 20 per cent fall in US house prices was a once in every three billion year event. A recent one: the routine software upgrade that was turned, by NatWest, RBS, and Ulster Bank into a financial hiatus affecting millions.

We learnt more. We always knew some of these pinstriped goodfellas got hurt amid the rivalries and turf wars. Now we learnt that the mayhem they created, the speculation they sprayed around, could catch entire populations in its crossfire. In the words of George Osborne on Thursday: "The failures in our banks and financial system have cost the country billions and put thousands out of work."

And, as we daily absorbed the cost of this, we learnt about mis-selling of personal loan insurance. Hundreds of thousands were sold these policies, which were little more than a means for banks to impose a tax on their customers when they were at their most needy. So now we knew they were not only greedy and sometimes incompetent, but often up to sharp practices. After all, customers are muppets, aren't they?

Then last week, with the revelations about their rigging of interest rates, we learnt they were dishonest as well. The Libor scandal (the technicalities of which are explained in our Q&A), came to light on Wednesday when Barclays was the first bank (of potentially 20) to be fined by US and UK regulators for attempting to rig a fundamental part of the world financial system for their own benefit.

The Libor is no small matter. It affects the cost of no less than $554trn (£353trn) in financial contracts around the world. Barclays' misconduct, according to Tracey McDermott, the acting director of enforcement and financial crime at the Financial Services Agency (FSA), was "serious, widespread, and extended over a number of years". The US regulator said Barclays co-ordinated with traders at other banks to make false submissions, and confirmation came from London that banks were acting in concert. Criminal investigations are now under way.

The day after the Libor shenanigans broke, there came news of a further racket: the rooking of small businesses via interest-rate swap arrangements. These are complicated derivatives products sold as protection – or to act as a hedge – against a rise in interest rates, without the customer fully grasping the risks. Banks have sold around 28,000 interest-rate protection products to customers since 2001, according to the FSA ...

more at link

[Taurean]

Brilliant Tony Robinson Rant

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G_dmxmHYts

[Sabrina]

A UK e petition below.

As financial scandals unfold, people are starting to get that something's not right. Financial commentators are getting the same. Perhaps that's a shift in consciousness in itself to propel the whole thing forward. Scott Mowry in a radio interview, said that he thought the financial world needed to unravel first before disclosure (of our off planet brothers and sisters). Makes sense to me.

Public inquiry into wrongdoing and ethics of bankers

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/35421

e-petition - UK

Responsible department: Her Majesty's Treasury

We the undersigned call for an independent, judicial public enquiry into fraud, wrongdoing and ethics of British banks, their management and their staff, and the role of the British Bankers Association. The terms of reference of this inquiry should also include the manipulation of interest rates on about £225 trillion of assets. The inquiry must have full powers to compel witnesses to appear on oath, and to obtain all forms of evidence.

[Sabrina]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18665719

1 July

Barclays bank chairman Marcus Agius to resign

The BBC's Robert Peston reports on the ''momentum'' that was building for Mr Agius to goContinue reading the main story



There will be an announcement on Monday morning, BBC business editor Robert Peston says.

It comes after Barclays was fined £290m ($450m) for attempting to manipulate the Libor inter-bank lending rate.

Earlier, it emerged the Royal Bank of Scotland had sacked four traders over their alleged involvement in the Libor-fixing scandal.

The dismissals happened at the end of last year.

Barclays was fined after the Financial Services Authority (FSA) found its traders had lied about the interest rate other banks were charging it for loans. Investigations are also under way at RBS, HSBC, Citigroup and UBS.

Giving a lower reading than the true rate would give the impression other banks thought it was a better risk to lend to than it was.

Libor (London Inter Bank Offered Rate) is the rate at which banks in London lend money to each other.

Diamond support
Robert Peston said Mr Agius's decision was not wholly unexpected as he was first in the firing line as far as shareholders were concerned and Barclays had been thinking it needed a new chairman for some time.


There is a perception, which is perhaps false, that he is not quite tough enough”


Robert Peston
Business editor

Mr Diamond has insisted he will not resign over the scandal.

He is due to appear before the Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday, with Mr Agius set to follow on Thursday.

The BBC's business editor said earlier that, in making false submissions about their borrowing costs, Barclays managers believed they were operating under an instruction from Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker.

He said this belief came about after a telephone conversation in the autumn of 2008 between Mr Tucker and Bob Diamond, who at the time ran Barclays' investment bank, Barclays Capital.

Mr Tucker did not issue this instruction. But he and Mr Diamond have different recollections of their conversation.

So what Mr Diamond recalls about this telephone conversation might turn out to be the most explosive and important part of his testimony to MPs on the Treasury Select Committee, our correspondent added.

Independent review
In a letter to the committee last week, Mr Diamond condemned the inappropriate behaviour of a "small number" of employees who had tried to make profits for their own benefit.

In his open letter to chairman Andrew Tyrie MP, Mr Diamond pointed out that authorities found no evidence that knowledge of the manipulation, for which it has been fined £290m, went any higher than "immediate desk supervisors".

Robert Peston said he believed Barclays board had "thrown its weight" behind Mr Diamond, considering him to be the best man to clean up the bank's culture.

Earlier, the head of the Financial Services Authority, Lord Turner, said the FSA's fine for Barclays was its strongest currently available sanction and the law should be tightened to tackle misbehaviour in banking.

He told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme there should be a presumption a director of a failed bank should not work in the industry again.

Business Secretary Vince Cable is considering criminal sanctions for bank directors. He said those in charge of failed banks should face prosecution - a view echoed by Lord Turner.

Ministers have announced an independent review of the Libor workings, which will be established next week and report by the end of summer.

On Saturday, Labour leader Ed Miliband called for a public inquiry into the customs and practices of the banking industry.

[Sabrina]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...g-bankers.html

1 July UK

FSA head urges tighter law for failing bankers

Adair Turner, head of the Financial Services Authority, said the Libor scandal had "justifiably angered people" and called for tighter laws
on failing bankers.

Barclays, Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, said the law should be tightened to tackle misbehaviour in banking.
He told the BBC that the Government was looking at his suggestions about changing the law as to the liability of directors, which were dubbed "more heads will roll" proposals.

"If you are the director of a bank that's failed, it's not a matter of bad practice but simply causing problems for the whole economy, whether there should be a presumption that you should not be allowed back into the industry again," he said.
His comments came after Barclays was this week fined £290m over rate fixing allegations. Ministers have also announced an independent review into the inter-bank lending rate in the wake of revelations that it was rigged by Barclays and other financial institutions.

The government said the independent review will consider the future operation of the so-called Libor rate and the possibility of introducing criminal sanctions for its manipulation.

full story at link

[Sabrina]

http://americankabuki.blogspot.co.uk...y-to.html#more

Barclay's LIBOR Corruption a Phony Ploy to Strengthen the Bloomberg/Qatar QIBOR?

Reposted from The Daily Bell

Barclay's LIBOR Corruption a Phony Ploy to Strengthen the Bloomberg/Qatar QIBOR?
Thursday, June 28, 2012 – by Staff Report

Barclays Libor fix trail leads to senior managers ... Senior Barclays managers were worried over negative headlines during the financial crisis and contributed to a culture that fixed key funding rates artificially low, U.S. and UK regulators said in reaching a settlement with the bank. The findings based on internal emails and other communications raise questions about how high up the Barclays management chain came instructions to submit lower rates, and who knew about the rate rigging. – Reuters


Dominant Social Theme: The corruption of these Western banks is terminal!

Free-Market Analysis: So Barclay's resides at the "heart of darkness" which is LIBOR – various rates at which banks and the rest of can borrow. Something isn't quite right about this.

Bloomberg is busy setting up QIBOR in Qatar, and the putative explanation is that there is too much corruption in London. Now we have an example of corruption! Convenient? Right on time ...

QIBOR is just like LIBOR and those involved will "set" the rate at which banks borrow after conversing with banks themselves. This is a US$ 90 trillion market and thus the movement of this facility from London to Qatar is no small event.

If one were interested in moving such a large market, charges of corruption would surely be helpful. And lo and behold, we are reading about them everywhere.

What is the big deal about financial corruption? It is simply a fact that the world's modern central banking is shot through with corruption. How could it be otherwise? It begins with central banks that fix the price of money and its volume and continues from there.

When a small group of people have the power to basically print as much money as they want – and do – then to act surprised that "corruption" permeates the entire system is somewhat, well ... manipulative in our view.
This LIBOR "scandal" has a manufactured smell to it in our humble opinion. For one thing, the headlines are screaming about Barclay's as if the bank was manipulating rates UP (and maybe they did). But this Reuters story indicates that rates were being set artificially low – because of a fear that Barclay's would be seen as a gouger.



Here's more from the story


Barclays was fined $453 million on Wednesday for manipulating interbank lending rates over several years. These are known as Libor and Euribor, underpinning trillions of dollars of derivatives deals plus corporate and personal borrowing rates.


The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the UK's Financial Services Authority settled with Barclays on a civil basis, while Canadian authorities said they still had an open investigation.
The Justice Department said it still had a criminal investigation in progress.


Barclays Chief Executive Bob Diamond, the investment bank unit's boss at the time of the rate fixings, and three of his key lieutenants, said they were giving up their 2012 bonuses in response.
Investigators faulted individual derivatives traders for fixing rate submissions for their own profit, while Barclays was slammed for regularly reporting lower borrowing rates than it was actually paying throughout the financial crisis.
Staff responsible for submitting rates in some instances told colleagues of "internal political" pressure to set these low, the FSA's report shows.


Barclays "senior management at high levels" became concerned over the media scrutinizing the bank's funding access early in the financial crisis, in August 2007.


"Senior management's concerns in turn resulted in instructions being given by less senior managers at Barclays to reduce Libor submissions in order to avoid negative media comment," the UK's FSA said in its report. "The origin of these instructions is unclear."


The U.S. CFTC said specific instructions to lower submissions came from "senior Barclays Treasury managers". They asked submitters to provide rates at a level where Barclays wouldn't be "sticking its head above the parapet."
We can see from this reporting, assuming it is accurate, that Barclays was setting rates to the advantage of borrowers. This is what central bankers do all the time – keep short interest rates at extremely low levels via their price-fixing authority.

While central bankers manipulate money all the time to try to "restimulate" economies that have been blown to bits by their previous manipulations, when Barclays does it in a somewhat timid fashion all hell breaks loose.
For Barclays, such matters suddenly constitute criminality. We would submit the criminal manipulations go a good deal higher and run all the way up to the power elite itself, which apparently controls about 150 central banks around the world.

Top central bankers can do basically whatever they want to – or so we can see in the modern day – but let Barclays try to offer information that would skew rates lower and you're suddenly talking about the depths of depravity.
It reminds us a little about the Murdochian phone-tapping saga going on in England today. The British Parliament has drawn up rules to obtain every single email and other kind of electronic communication in that long-suffering country but various News Corp. employees are being dragged through an endless investigation into phone tapping.
The public sector, or those who operate in the shadows behind the public sector, are immune to these sorts of criminal charges. This system worked especially well in the 20th century when people were less aware of those operating behind the "curtain."

But today, thanks to what we call the Internet Reformation, it is increasingly clear that the system is one two-track criminality. At the very top the laws do not apply. Elites are exempted based on "national security concerns" and worries about "economic contagion" that provides justifications for the most outrageous manipulations.
In this case, we would tend to believe that this perception of massive LIBOR criminality is at least somewhat manufactured. For one thing, LIBOR is the creation of banks that meet regularly to "set" (fix) lending rates. The process itself is criminal to begin with in the sense that it is a kind of open conspiracy.

As free-market types, we have no trouble with collusion generally, but these banks all partake of state privileges in one way or another. The larger banking process is chock-full of government privilege and exemptions. Most of the "money" banks use are now electronic digits in one way or another provided to them by designated central banks.
The second reason we are suspicious of the motivations surrounding this Barclay's "affair" is that the powers-that-be are moving a good deal of financial activity to the Middle East. The elites are working hard to create an amalgam of Islamic and Western finance, and placing LIBOR in Qatar – as QIBOR – is just one more element of this larger plan, in our view. Bloomberg, as a corporation, is a designated instrument of this strategy.


Conclusion: There is plenty swirling in the background of all this. Criminality in this case, may surely be in the "eye of the beholder." And those who proclaim the most loudly to be "shocked" are perhaps the least surprised.

[Sabrina]

http://lucas2012infos.wordpress.com/...-30-june-2012/

Volubrjotr – Lawsuit Filed Against Convicted Felon George Soros & Donald Trump – Colluded In Multi $Billion Money Laundering/Bankruptcy Fraud Scheme – 30 June 2012

NEW YORK, NY – Law Offices of David H. Relkin, Esq. on behalf of Leslie Dick Worldwide Ltd. has filed a Federal RICO Complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Case No. 08-CV-7900) against George Soros, Deutsche Bank, Vornado Realty Trust, Fortress Investment Group, Donald J. Trump & 12 other RICO conspirators for $4.2 Billion in damage

full story at link

[Sabrina]

http://2012indyinfo.com/2012/07/01/e...ng-22-million/

Ex-Citigroup VP gets eight years for stealing $22 million

By Jessica Dye

NEW YORK | Fri Jun 29, 2012 5:33pm EDT

(Reuters) – A former Citigroup Inc (C.N) vice president who admitted to embezzling more than $22 million was sentenced on Friday to 8 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

Gary Foster, 35, pleaded guilty in September to siphoning the money from his employer between 2003 and 2010, transferring the funds to Citigroup’s cash account before wiring it into his own personal account at a different bank.

He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Eric Vitaliano in Brooklyn federal court to 97 months on the bank fraud charge.

“While obviously we anticipated this would be a serious sentence, since it was a serious crime, we’re grateful that the judge took other matters into account,” including a public statement read in court Friday accepting responsibility and apologizing for the theft, said Isabelle Kirshner, a lawyer for Foster.

A spokesman for Citigroup declined comment.

Federal prosecutors said Foster “steadily and repeatedly enriched himself for many years at his employer’s expense,” according to a pre-sentencing court filing.

Foster was able to evade detection for years by making false accounting entries that made it seem like the wire transfers were in support of existing Citigroup contracts, when they were actually being transferred to his account, according to the complaint. He used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle, purchasing luxury automobiles including a Ferrari and Maserati, and properties in Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Jersey, prosecutors said.

The fraud was uncovered during an internal audit of Citigroup’s treasury department. Citigroup immediately informed the authorities and cooperated with the federal investigation, according to an affidavit from Thomas D’Amico, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The government said it had seized cars and property from Foster worth approximately $14 million, which he forfeited pursuant to a plea agreement.

Foster, who worked for Citigroup for 10 years, was a vice-president in the treasury finance department when he left the company in January 2011. He was arrested in July at John F. Kennedy Airport.

He voluntarily returned to the United States from a trip to Bangkok after his family told him there was a warrant for his arrest, his lawyers said.

The case is U.S. v. Foster, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No. 11-601.

For the U.S.: Michael Yaeger and Karen Hennigan.

For Foster: Isabelle Kirshner of Clayman & Rosenberg.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye; Editing by Bernard Orr)

[Sabrina]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...g-7902913.html

2 july Uk

Barclays chairman Marcus Agius quits in bid to stop the bleeding

The chairman of Barclays confirmed today that he is stepping down as the storm over the interest rate fixing scandal led to sackings at another high street bank and political pressure grew for a City-wide criminal investigation.

The departure of Marcus Agius was announced this morning as the embattled bank moved to satisfy political demands for a senior executive to take responsibility for the debacle which has wiped billions off its share price and shaken confidence in Britain's financial institutions.

In his statement this morning, Mr Agius said: he was "truly sorry" and that "the buck stops with me."

The move came after it emerged that the taxpayer-funded Royal Bank of Scotland has sacked four traders over the scam and Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, said he supported a police inquiry into the manipulation of the Libor inter-bank lending rate.

The hardening of government rhetoric – Mr Cable says the Serious Fraud Office is re-examining evidence of rate-fixing – came as Barclays and other banks at the heart of the scandal braced themselves for "BP-style" lawsuits that are likely to cost billions of pounds in compensation.

The Barclays board hopes that the departure of Mr Agius, who had a difficult relationship with shareholders, will relieve some pressure on the bank's embattled chief executive, Bob Diamond.

Mr Agius is due to go before the Treasury Select Committee on Thursday and is expected to appear despite his resignation.

He will be replaced, at least in the interim, by Sir Michael Rake, an experienced City figure who is currently the bank's senior independent director.

His resignation letter is expected to accept that the buck stops with him and to offer an apology to staff, customers and shareholders for the "devastating blow" to the bank's reputation from an "unacceptable standard of behaviour".

Mr Agius earned £750,000 a year for a three-day week and was on 12 months' notice. He also held 232,000 shares, worth £378,000.

Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that Mr Diamond told City analysts hours after his bank had been hit with a record fine that he was confident the firestorm "will fade".

An email circulated by staff at the investment giant Morgan Stanley following a face-to-face meeting last Thursday showed Mr Diamond to be in a bullish mood, insisting that he had no intention of resigning despite admitting that the exposure of the rate fixing was a "significant blow" and he expected matters would "get worse before better".

Mr Diamond's position remains precarious despite his insistence that he will remain in his post. Patience Wheatcroft, a Conservative peer and a former non-executive director of Barclays, yesterday joined the list of those, including the Labour leader Ed Miliband, who have called for his resignation.

A copy of the memo obtained by The Independent reveals how the bank boss said he feared the scandal would lead to what analysts described as "more political intervention" and that it reinforced the "bad caricature" of the industry. Mr Diamond, who last year called for an end to banker bashing, said he expected pressure on the industry would recede once reforms had been put in place to deal with the question of what to do with banks deemed "too big to fail".

Under the heading "Political and Regulatory Aftershocks", the Morgan Stanley memo based on Mr Diamond's comments said: "[He] fears more political intervention. Thinks political and regulatory pressure will fade as the too-big-to-fail question is addressed… but that is for the longer term and things get worse before better."

The £17m-a-year chief executive also acknowledged that Barclays and other British banks under investigation for rate fixing, including RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, face the prospect of a wave of compensation suits and raised BP, which is facing a total bill of up to £40bn for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, as "a case in point". A Barclays spokesman said yesterday: "We do not comment on analyst notes."

Mr Diamond will be asked about the size of Barclays' legal liabilities when he appears before MPs on the Commons Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday for what is likely to be an uncomfortable examination of his actions to deal with rate fixing.

It emerged yesterday that the Barclays boss held a conversation in 2008 with Paul Tucker, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, about the bank's predictions for Libor, which acts as a benchmark for financial instruments worth £229trn worldwide.

MPs are likely to ask Mr Diamond why, following his telephone call with Mr Tucker, managers of Barclays' investment arm believed the Bank of England had sanctioned the practice of making the bank look stronger than it was by submitting lower interest rates than it was actually paying itself.

The Financial Services Authority, said last week that Barclays and the Bank of England had agreed that the central bank gave no instruction for Barclays to falsify its submissions during the conversation.

The repercussions from the Libor manipulation, which took place between 2005 and at least 2009, and led to Barclays being fined £290m by American and British regulators, extended to a second UK bank for the first time when RBS said it had dismissed four traders over the practice at the end of last year. The sacked men were named last night as Paul White, Neil Danziger, Andrew Hamilton and Tan Chi Min.

Mr Tan, who was sacked for gross misconduct for trying to influence Libor rates, claimed in court papers filed yesterday that the bank had condoned the practice and it was common for senior staff to make rate requests to maximise profits. The bank, which is still struggling to overcome the computer glitch which froze millions of clients out of their accounts, declined to comment on the sackings.

Mr Cable supported a call from Lord Blair, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, for a police investigation into what he said appeared to be evidence that Barclays staff had perpetrated a conspiracy to defraud.

David Cameron is also under pressure to widen the terms of a review of the way in which Libor rates are set.

Rake's progress: new man in charge

Polo-playing Sir Michael Rake is a serial chairman of some of Britain's biggest companies who as a young man flunked his professional exams but went on to become the country's highest paid accountant

As a schoolboy he dreamt of becoming an RAF pilot but when his hopes were dashed because of a skin complaint he turned to accountancy. He had postings in Europe and the Middle East before his career took him to the chairmanship of KPMG International and an annual income of £3.6m.

[Sabrina]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18677356

2 JUly UK

Bank inquiry launched after Libor rate-rigging scandal


Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a full parliamentary inquiry of the banking sector following the Barclays rate-rigging furore.

He told the House of Commons the manipulation of the Libor interest rates had been a "scandal".

The review will run alongside a narrower inquiry specifically into the Libor market, also announced on Monday.

The comments follow news the Serious Fraud Office is considering whether to bring criminal charges.

In addition, Barclays will conduct its own "root and branch review" after receiving a fine of £290m ($450m) over the Libor affair.

Mr Cameron said the full parliamentary committee of inquiry would be headed by the chairman of the Treasury Committee, Andrew Tyrie.

full story at link

[Sabrina]

There´s a lot coming out...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18673220

2 JUly





GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to pay $3bn (£1.9bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history.

The drug giant is to plead guilty to promoting two drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The settlement will cover criminal fines as well as civil settlements with the federal and state governments.

The case concerns the drugs Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia.

Deputy US Attorney General James Cole told a news conference in Washington DC that the settlement was "unprecedented in both size and scope".

Doctors bribed
GSK, one of the world's largest healthcare and pharmaceuticals companies, admitted to promoting antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin for unapproved uses, including treatment of children and adolescents.





The company also conceded charges that it held back data and made unsupported safety claims over its diabetes drug Avandia.

In addition, GSK has been found guilty of paying kickbacks to doctors.

"The sales force bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products using every imaginable form of high-priced entertainment, from Hawaiian vacations [and] paying doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking tours, to tickets to Madonna concerts," said US attorney Carmin Ortiz.

As part of the settlement, GSK agreed to be monitored by government officials for five years.

GSK said in a statement it would pay the fines through existing cash resources.

Andrew Witty, the firm's chief executive, said procedures for compliance, marketing and selling had been changed at GSK's US unit.

"We have learnt from the mistakes that were made," Mr Witty said. "When necessary, we have removed employees who have engaged in misconduct