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Article: Offshore Banking – The Secret Threat To America (Hound-Dogs)

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Offshore Banking: The Secret Threat To America

Lucy Komisar

Hound-Dogs, 1 March 2004

This is a story about a massive money-laundering operation run by the world’s biggest banks. It hides behind the “eyes-glazing over” technicalities of the international financial system. But it could be one of the biggest illicit money-moving operations anyone has ever seen. And it’s allowed to exist by the financial regulators who answer to Western governments.

In these days of global markets, individuals and companies may be buying stocks, bonds or derivatives from a seller who is Clearstreamhalfway across the world. Clearstream, based in Luxembourg, is one of two international clearinghouses that keep track of the “paperwork” for the transactions.

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Paper: Without a Trace: The Importance of Information in Markets

Paper

Without a Trace: The Importance of Information in Markets

Susanne Trimbath

Milken Institute Working Paper, January  2004

Economists and practitioners alike would agree that information plays an important role in capital markets. But the practical job of gathering, organizing and disseminating information in markets is too often left to chance. This paper dramatizes the difficulties that can occur when that happens by using the high yield market as an example. The transition from rapid expansion in the 1980s to stable growth in the 1990s was not without its informational road-bumps. The main point of the paper is to emphasize the importance of the informational role being played by industry organizations such as the Loan Syndication and Trading Association (LSTA) in the U.S.

PDF (14 pages): Without a Trace: The Importance of Information in Markets

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Article: Don’t Force The Shorts To Get Dressed

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Don’t Force The Shorts To Get Dressed

Gary Weiss

Business Week cited by RGM Communications via Wayback, 8 December 2003

At a time when the stock market is in a state of chronic schizophrenia, with a year’s worth of gains being chipped away, one corner of the market has withstood the recent travails far better than any other: small-cap stocks. The Russell 2000 Index of such stocks is up 37% so far this year — double the gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.

And in October, trading volume in the very smallest stocks, which are listed on the OTC Bulletin Board, climbed 400% over a year ago. Good news — but only up to a point. Regulators have long warned that such stocks are notoriously prone to manipulation and hype.

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Article: Knoxville-area firm seeks to expose naked short-sellers

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Knoxville-area firm seeks to expose naked short-sellers

Lauren Drapala

Nashville Post, 1 November 2003

Green Dolphin Systems Corporation (GDLS.OB), a small company outside of Knoxville that produces environmentally-friendly specialty chemical products, has announced a plan it believes will lift its share price. The Powell, Tenn. company plans to fight the short-selling of the company’s shares in schemes to run stock prices to the ground, otherwise known as naked short-selling. In a letter to existing shareholders, Nick Plessas, president of Green Dolphin, has asked those with shares to demand physical delivery of Green Dolphin certificates from their brokers.

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Article: Wall Street’s Next Nightmare?

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Wall Street’s Next Nightmare?

Rob Wherry

Forbes, 5 October 2003

From his 23rd-floor suite of offices in Houston’s Lyric Centre, John M. O’Quinn is plotting what he hopes will be his next multibillion-dollar jackpot. Not that the 62-year-old senior partner of O’Quinn, Laminack & Pirtle needs the dough; FORBES estimates his law firm has won $1.5 billion in fees from the makers of silicon breast implants and cigarettes. This time he’s aiming at Wall Street.

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Notice: The Depository Trust Company Rulemaking Order Granting Approval of a Proposed Rule Change Concerning Requests for Withdrawal of Certificates by Issuers

Notice

The Depository Trust Company Rulemaking Order Granting Approval of a Proposed Rule Change Concerning Requests for Withdrawal of Certificates by Issuers

Securities and Exchange Commission, 4 June 2003

On February 3, 2003, The Depository Trust Company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) and on February 11, 2003, amended proposed rule change SR-DTC-2003-02 pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Act”).1 Notice of the proposal was published in the Federal Register on February 22, 2003.2 Eighty-nine comment letters were received.3 For the reasons discussed below, the Commission is granting approval of the proposed rule change.

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Article: Offshore Banking: The Secret Threat to America (Dissent Magazine)

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Offshore Banking: The Secret Threat to America

Lucy Komisar

Dissent Magazine, Spring 2003

In November 1932, deputy Fabien Albertin took the floor of the National Assembly in Paris to denounce tax evasion by eminent French personalities-politicians, judges, industrialists, church dignitaries, and directors of newspapers-who were hiding their money in Switzerland.

“The minister of finance knows very well that for ten years, the concern of all his predecessors has been to track down this fraud . . . ” he declared. “However, till now, the information one has gotten has been extremely vague. When documents arrive, they are formless notebooks in which holders of accounts are represented only as numbers. Employees of the banks don’t know the names of account holders. These names are known only to the director of the bank, who the clients forbid to correspond with them, so anxious are they to preserve anonymity.”

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Article: SEC’s IPO probe expands to include Morgan Stanley

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SEC’s IPO probe expands to include Morgan Stanley

Investment Executive, 26 February 2003

“The Securities and Exchange Commission, expanding a probe into alleged IPO abuses, has signaled to Morgan Stanley that it may file civil charges alleging the securities firm doled out shares to investors based partly on their commitments to buy additional stock after trading began, people familiar with the matter say,” writes Randall Smith in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“The SEC staff has informally indicated to Morgan Stanley that it plans to send a so-called Wells notice notifying the firm of the planned charges, the people said. The development suggests the SEC’s investigation into such “laddering” of stock sold in initial public offerings could be heating up. The probe is one of the last major regulatory crackdowns on Wall Street excesses that characterized the 1990s stock-market bubble.”

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Article: Mighty Merrill Lynch bogs down in legal troubles

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Mighty Merrill Lynch bogs down in legal troubles

Thor Valdmanis

Securities Arbitration, 10 October 2002

Douglas and Deborah Millar are about to become $7.7 million richer. The Pennsylvania couple didn’t buy a state lottery ticket. Instead, they played another popular game of chance: Sue Your Broker.

In granting one of the largest awards on record six weeks ago, a private arbitration panel ruled that Merrill Lynch failed to advise the Millars on how to protect the value of a stake in former Internet high-flier FreeMarkets that in better times was worth $48 million. Merrill has appealed, but legal scholars say arbitration awards are rarely overturned.

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Article: Foul Play Among the UAL Shorts?

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Foul Play Among the UAL Shorts?

Gene Marcial

Bloomberg, 8 October 2002

The shorts have crowded in on UAL in a big way, helping to push the parent of financially troubled United Airlines much closer to bankruptcy. The stock has nosedived from $20 a year ago to $2 on Oct. 8. Right after US Airways filed for bankruptcy protection on Aug. 11, UAL (UAL ) announced that it, too, might have to resort to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. UAL shares were then trading at $4.

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Paper: High Yield Financing and Efficiency-Enhancing Takeovers

Paper

High Yield Financing and Efficiency-Enhancing Takeovers

Susanne Trimbath

Milken Institute Policy Brief No. 22, 27 November 2000

This study analyzes the determinants of the risk of takeover from 1981 to 1997 based on a sample of 896 Fortune 500 firms using sophisticated methodology. The measure of firm efficiency includes both production costs and overhead expenses. If relatively inefficient firms are chosen as the targets in takeovers and the new owners reduce the costs of these inefficiencies, then the potential for gains from takeovers for the US economy exists. Because firm-level costs are adjusted for the industry median, the study is able to capture the inefficiency implications of firms where it is clear that other firms in the same general product line are better controlling their costs. Indeed, high total cost per unit of revenue is a powerful determinant of the risk of takeover throughout the period under study. The impact of size on the risk of takeover, however, changed across time.

PDF (29 pages): High Yield Financing and Efficiency-Enhancing Takeovers

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Article: NASD Fines Morgan Stanley $1 Million For Allegedly Manipulating Stock Prices

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NASD Fines Morgan Stanley $1 Million For Allegedly Manipulating Stock Prices

Deborah Lohse

Wall Street Journal,

The National Association of Securities Dealers fined Morgan Stanley & Co. $1 million and suspended and fined seven traders for allegedly manipulating in 1995 the price of 10 stocks that are part of the Nasdaq 100 Index.

The decision was issued Monday, following five days of hearings last June and July before the NASD’s market-regulation committee. That committee, made up of members of the securities industry, was convened after Morgan Stanley contested an NASD Regulation complaint on the matter issued Oct. 25, 1996.

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Article: 30 Firms to Pay $900 Million In Investor Suit

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30 Firms to Pay $900 Million In Investor Suit

David Barboza

New York Times, 25 December 1997

Thirty brokerage firms, including some of the biggest and most trusted names on Wall Street, agreed yesterday to pay about $900 million to end a civil suit contending they schemed with one another for years to fix prices on the Nasdaq stock market.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, which represented tens of thousands of investors, called it the biggest settlement ever of a price-fixing lawsuit.

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THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?