Foreign Collusion, Naked Shorting (Counterfeiting) & Money Laundering — All Illicit Wealth
Billionaire Ken Griffin buys most expensive home in Chicago
Robert Frank
CNBC, 10 January 2018
According to local media reports, Griffin bought the top four floors of a new condo tower on the Gold Coast for $58.5 million. And he’s buying raw space. So he will spend millions more to turn the space into a home.
Israeli Intelligence Firm Used By Harvey Weinstein Resurfaces In Toronto Suit
Jacquie McNish, Rob Copeland
Wall Street Journal, 15 November 2017
West Face Capital Inc. filed a motion with an Ontario court Wednesday seeking an order to stop Israeli intelligence firm Black Cube from continuing alleged attempts to covertly obtain confidential information from the Toronto firm’s former and current employees.
Also suing @realrobcopeland & @jacquiemcnish: “Callidus and Catalyst last week sued Dow Jones & Co., the owner of The Wall Street Journal, and Journal reporters Rob Copeland and Jacquie McNish” https://t.co/KQJJifsANu
— Roddy Boyd (@RodBoydILM) November 15, 2017
Callidus Capital files suit over ‘wave of short attacks’ against firm
Christina Pellegrini
The Globe and Mail, 8 November 2017
Callidus Capital Corp. has filed a lawsuit against a group of investors and borrowers in Canada and the United States for allegedly working in concert to drive down the price of the distressed-debt lender’s shares.
The Toronto-based company filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in an Ontario court. It is suing a group of investment firms – which it calls the “wolfpack conspirators” – that includes private-equity firm West Face Capital Inc., hedge fund Anson Group and several companies related to it, and ClaritySpring Inc.
Barbara Shecter
Financial Post, 8 November 2017
Catalyst Capital Group Inc. has launched a lawsuit against Anson Group Canada, a privately held asset manager with operations in Canada and Texas, and Toronto-based private equity firm West Face Capital Inc., accusing them of participating in a “manipulative ‘short and distort’ campaign.”
The alleged target was publicly traded Catalyst subsidiary Callidus Capital Corp., claims the lawsuit, which dubs the Anson, West Face and several associated and unrelated individuals as “Wolfpack Conspirators.”
RM LAW Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Health Insurance Innovations, Inc.
15 September 2017
RM LAW, P.C. announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of all persons or entities that purchased Health Insurance Innovations, Inc. (NASDAQ: HIIQ) (“Health Insurance Innovations” or the “Company”) securities between August 2, 2017 and September 11, 2017, inclusive (the “Class Period”).
Callidus Statement Regarding Allegations in The Wall Street Journal
Callidus Capital, 2017
Callidus Capital Corporation (the “Company” or “Callidus”) today provided the statement below in response to media reports containing allegations regarding the Company and its majority shareholder, The Catalyst Capital Group Inc. (“Catalyst”).
The Wall Street Journal today published allegations about Callidus and Catalyst that are completely false. Callidus is particularly concerned that the Wall Street Journal chose to publish these allegations after a comprehensive briefing held with them on August 8, 2017. For example, as part of that meeting it was made clear that the treatment of the Catalyst guarantee for Callidus loans made to Xchange Technology Group was in accordance with all applicable accounting requirements. As well, full disclosure was contained in both Catalyst’s financial reports to its limited partners and through Callidus’ public disclosures on an ongoing basis. The accounting treatment and disclosure were entirely appropriate and there is no basis for allegations to the contrary, facts the Wall Street Journal chose to ignore.
JPMorgan Fined for Bad Trade Surveillance Parameter Settings
Trillium, 1 August 2017
Last week, the enforcement divisions of the three major exchange groups released a settlement agreement with JP Morgan Securities imposing an $800,000 fine for inadequate pre-trade controls and post-trade surveillance.
The post-trade surveillance portion of the settlement agreement revealed that JPMS used an unnamed “commercial non-proprietary Third-Party Surveillance System” (it wasn’t Surveyor), but set the parameters of that system “at levels that were unreasonable to detect activity that may be indicative of layering and spoofing activity.”
Morgan Stanley, 4 others settle forex-rigging case for $111.2M
Katherine Dela Cruz
S&P Global, 30 July 2017
Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered Plc, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., Société Générale SA and RBC Capital Markets LLC agreed to pay a total of $111.2 million to settle a U.S. lawsuit accusing them of manipulating prices in the foreign exchange market, pending court approval.
The lawsuit was filed in 2014 against 12 companies, including Morgan Stanley, for allegedly conspiring to fix artificial prices on foreign exchange markets. In 2015, Standard Chartered, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Société Générale and RBC Capital Markets were added as defendants in the case.
Dan Mangan
CNBC, 5 July 2017
A Merrill Lynch salesman Wednesday described his shock at learning in February 2011 that Martin Shkreli’s hedge fund was unable cover a short trade that left Merrill Lynch with a $7 million loss a day after assuring the firm the trade could be covered.
Former Deutsche Bank trader banned for ‘spoofing’
Dave Michaels
MarketWatch, 2 June 2017
A former futures trader at Deutsche Bank AG was permanently barred from the industry after admitting he conspired to manipulate the price of gold and silver futures contracts.
David Liew, a trader who was based in Singapore, also pleaded guilty in federal criminal court in Illinois on Thursday to using illegal spoofing techniques from 2009 to 2012. Regulators and prosecutors have cracked down on spoofing, which involves sending fake offers intended to push prices in a direction that benefits the trader’s other orders. Congress made it illegal through the 2010 Dodd Frank financial overhaul law.
In conversation with Thomas Ronk of Buyins.net
Leonard Zehr
BioTuesdays, 30 May 2017
As the founder and CEO of Buyins.net, Thomas Ronk has created a proprietary database and trading strategy based on short sale timing and sales data that was not accessible to anyone prior to January 2005. As a registered representative of Transamerica Financial Resources, a division of Transamerica, Mr. Ronk managed more than $150-million in equity accounts from 1993 until 1998. He has 27 years of trading experience and is the principal of Century Pacific Investments, a registered investment advisor in California. Prior to the investment business, Mr. Ronk studied Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California in San Diego. In this interview with BioTuesdays, Mr. Ronk discusses manipulative short selling and how his company helps clients to analyze and develop a plan to deal with it.
CEO fires back at short-seller Citron on live TV: ‘Mr. Left is dead wrong’
Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
CNBC, 15 May 2017
Exact Sciences Chairman and CEO Kevin Conroy fired back at a bearish assessment made by Citron Research’s Andrew Left, who predicted a long-term drop in the cancer testing company’s stock to a near-zero single digit.
Citron said in a report on Monday that Exact Sciences’ Cologuard cancer test, an at home screening for colon cancer, is “inferior” and shouldn’t be pitching it as an alternative to a colonoscopy.
Comment: Andrew Left’s Citron appears to be a front for naked short sellers.
ETF Short Interest and Failures-to-Deliver: Naked Short-Selling or Operational Shorting?
Richard B. Evans, Rabih Moussawi, Michael S. Pagano, John Sedunov
Darden Business School, 3 May 2017
We identify an alternative source of ETF shorting related to the market maker liquidity provision and creation/redemption activities. This “operational shorting” arises due to a regulatory exemption, allowing ETF market makers to satisfy excess demand in secondary markets by selling ETF shares that have not yet been created.
PDF (79 pages): ETF Short Interest and Failures-to-Deliver: Naked Short-Selling or Operational Shorting?
Consolidate Audit Trail – Timeliness of Reporting
Finance Magnates, 2 March 2017
While US broker dealers anticipate the initiation of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), many aspects of this regulation remains a topic of conversation for the industry.
One area of particular interest is the subject of timeliness for reporting. ‘Timeliness’ has been defined as “when the data is available to regulators and how long it would take to process before it could be used for regulatory analysis.” So how does one determine whether the current CAT NMS Plans will allow for timeliness of reporting, and what opportunities are there for technology to help support this objective?
THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?
