Article: After Mysterious On-Air Phone Call, CNBC’s Jim Cramer Says Trump Admin Considering His Coronavirus Ideas

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After Mysterious On-Air Phone Call, CNBC’s Jim Cramer Says Trump Admin Considering His Coronavirus Ideas

CNBC host and former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer announced that he thinks the federal government is considering some of his idea to combat economic uncertainty during the coronavirus crisis Thursday, after taking a mysterious “important call” live on air.

As Cramer was discussing ways for the U.S. government to help the market, his phone began to ring.

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Article: US charges Russian billionaire Tinkov with tax fraud

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US charges Russian billionaire Tinkov with tax fraud

Pedro Gonçalves, 09 March 2020

Tinkov stands accused of concealing $1bn in assets and income from the US tax authorities at the time when he renounced his US citizenship in 2013, which required him to report his assets following a stock market flotation in London, the Department of Justice said. Continue reading “Article: US charges Russian billionaire Tinkov with tax fraud”

Article: Mondelez, Kraft To Pay $16M To Resolve Allegations Of Futures Market Manipulation

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Mondelez, Kraft To Pay $16M To Resolve Allegations Of Futures Market Manipulation

Jayson Derrick, 06 March 2020

Food giants Mondelez International Inc MDLZ 0.07% and Kraft Food Groups will pay $16 million to settle allegations they created unfair advantages in wheat futures, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Mondelez, Kraft Settlement
Mondelez and Kraft were once part of a single corporate entity, and they and appear to be set on resolving a dispute with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the newspaper reported Thursday. Continue reading “Article: Mondelez, Kraft To Pay $16M To Resolve Allegations Of Futures Market Manipulation”

Article: Medici Ventures Purchases Additional Equity in GrainChain

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Medici Ventures Purchases Additional Equity in GrainChain

GLOBE NEWSWIRE, 06 March 2020

Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK) has announced that the company’s blockchain accelerator, Medici Ventures, has exercised a warrant to purchase an additional $5 million of equity in keiretsu company GrainChain to further grow its revolutionary agricultural blockchain platform. Medici Ventures is joining Eden Block and other investors in this latest round of funding for GrainChain, which resulted in $8.2 million in capital for the company. This follows Medici Ventures’ initial investment of $2.5 million in GrainChain, announced in December 2018.

GrainChain’s innovative platform enables faster payment and allows for the immediate availability of tradable commodities between buyers and farmers. Its blockchain-based infrastructure also reduces fraud and corruption through tracking and certification, and generally streamlines transactional procedures throughout the commodities supply chain. Continue reading “Article: Medici Ventures Purchases Additional Equity in GrainChain”

Article: Founder of Russian bank charged with tax fraud

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Founder of Russian bank charged with tax fraud

IRS, 05 March 2020

The founder of a Russian bank was arrested last week in London in connection with an indictment charging him with filing false tax returns, announced Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation, Special Agent in Charge Kareem Carter. The Sept. 26, 2019, indictment was unsealed today Continue reading “Article: Founder of Russian bank charged with tax fraud”

Article: US Authorities Build Case Against JP Morgan Over Market Manipulation For Precious Metals

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US Authorities Build Case Against JP Morgan Over Market Manipulation For Precious Metals

Mike Papantonio, 29 February 2020

Via America’s Lawyer: RT correspondent Michele Greenstein joins Mike Papantonio to walk us through a developing criminal case against bank behemoth JPMorgan, which is being accused yet again of manipulating precious metals markets for the express profit of its own clients and investors.

Mike Papantonio: Federal prosecutors are turning their attention towards bank behemoth JP Morgan, which is accused of manipulating gold and silver prices for the benefit of their clients and their shareholders. Michele Greenstein joins me now to explain what’s happening with this case. First off, run us through these allegations, Michele, you’ve covered this story a fair amount. It’s, it’s a story that again, corporate media isn’t covering this one. What is your take on this story?

Michele Greenstein: Well, US authorities are building a case, although formal accusations have not been made against the bank, but according to two people who are familiar with the matter who spoke with Bloomberg news, US authorities, like we said, are building a criminal case against JP Morgan. Now both the bank and the DOJ declined to comment, but a bank spokesperson did confirm that the DOJ is investigating “trading practices in the metal market and related conduct.” So Pap, what we’re talking about here is metal market manipulation that is intentionally misleading or spoofing members of the metals market. So gold, silver, platinum, palladium, all of these are the precious metals, right? And what market manipulation looks like is this.

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Article: Russia’s money laundering risks – what does the latest FATF report mean in practice?

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Russia’s money laundering risks – what does the latest FATF report mean in practice?

Kateryna Boguslavska, 26 February 2020

Russia’s risk level in the Basel AML Index has hit a record low following a December 2019 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) assessment that rated the country’s anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CFT) systems as reasonably effective.

The Basel AML Index is the only independent, data-based index of the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) around the world. Russia’s overall risk score has fallen from 5.75 to 5.60 out of 10, where 10 equals the highest assessed risk of ML/TF. It remains in the medium/high-risk category, reflecting in particular its vulnerabilities to a high level of corruption and to political and legal risks. Continue reading “Article: Russia’s money laundering risks – what does the latest FATF report mean in practice?”

Article: Beyond Deutsche: U.S. Banks Also Implicated in Dubious Partnerships Abroad

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Beyond Deutsche: U.S. Banks Also Implicated in Dubious Partnerships Abroad

CRISTINA MAZA, 24 February 2020

Evgeny, a retiree from the Russian city of Vladimir, always believed that the U.S. financial system had integrity. In particular Citibank, to him, was no Deutsche Bank, a bank known for getting in bed with dubious investors. And that belief, Evgeny says, may have led to his financial ruin.

The 63-year-old worked for years as a manager in the construction industry, and eventually he became a member of Russia’s minuscule middle class. He planned to retire in 2018 with roughly $100,000 in savings, the product of a lifetime of toil. For almost a decade he deposited his savings in one of Russia’s largest and most reputable financial institutions: Promsvyazbank. Evgeny was one of the bank’s top-tier clients, and he believed that he was on a path to financial stability for himself and his family. Continue reading “Article: Beyond Deutsche: U.S. Banks Also Implicated in Dubious Partnerships Abroad”

Article: Largest Silver Gold Manipulation Criminal Case Coming

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Largest Silver Gold Manipulation Criminal Case Coming

James Anderson, 08 February 2020

This week we learned that U.S. authorities at the DoJ, who have for years not only accused various JPMorgan Chase & Co. employees of rigging precious-metals futures but also got many to plead guilty. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is now, more importantly, building a criminal case against America’s biggest bank itself.

The previously unreported investigation of the global bank’s parent company, part of a wide-ranging attempt by the Federal government to maintain shreds of its former financial market credibility, raises the now new prospect of criminal charges against higher up executives within the United States’ largest bank.

And perhaps even larger implications are coming to this once considered too big to fail, therefore we must bail them out bank.

One which today in 2020, and seemingly year after year the Bank for International Settlements’ Financial Stability Board ascribes as being the #1 Global-Sytimatic Important Bank (G-SIB). In terser terms, JP Morgan’s stability is consistently ranked by the central bank of central banks, as being the largest threat to our global financial system functioning smoothly (new Bank Bail-In Laws on the books still).

Today we will dig into some details about this coming criminal case against JP Morgan Chase.

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Article: Inventiva completes a capital increase of €15 m subscribed by existing shareholders

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Inventiva completes a capital increase of €15 m subscribed by existing shareholders

Yahoo Finance, 07 February 2020

Daix (France), February 7, 2020 – Inventiva (IVA.NX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing oral small molecule therapies for the treatment of diseases in the areas of fibrosis, lysosomal storage disorders and oncology, today announced the successful completion of a capital increase of €15 million subscribed by some of its current key shareholders, BVF Partners L.P., NEA, Novo Holdings A/S and Sofinnova Partners. The capital increase was executed at the closing price of February 6, 2020 without discount.

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Article: China moves to limit short selling as virus looms over market reopening

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China moves to limit short selling as virus looms over market reopening

Zhang Yan, Ryan Woo, 02 February 2020

China has taken steps to limit short-selling activities as the country’s financial markets prepare to reopen on Monday amid an outbreak of a new coronavirus, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The sources said China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) had issued a verbal directive to brokerages including Citic Securities Co. and China International Capital Corp. to bar their clients from selling borrowed stocks on Feb. 3. It was not clear if the suspension — which was first reported on Sunday by Chinese media outlet 21st Century Business Herald — would be extended beyond Monday, one of the sources said. Continue reading “Article: China moves to limit short selling as virus looms over market reopening”

Article: What We Talk About When We Talk About the Russian Mob

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What We Talk About When We Talk About the Russian Mob

IN ROBERT MUELLER’S famed “Iron Triangles” speech, given to the Citizens Crime Commission of New York on 27 January 2011, the then-FBI Director explains how 21st century transnational organized crime works. (He also, improbably, cracks a joke about Justin Bieber’s haircut, the only sentence in the speech that feels dated).

The so-called “mob” is no longer run by a few families, Mueller says, but rather “flat, fluid networks with global reach,” comprised of groups in countries all around the world, which are “more anonymous and more sophisticated.”

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Article: Investors are asking the wrong questions about sustainability

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Investors are asking the wrong questions about sustainability

Carol A Adams, 30 January 2020

When it comes to hitting the 2030 targets underpinning the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, considering risk alone will not cut it. Larry Fink’s recent emphasis on climate change risks and divesting in coal is significant, albeit a few decades late, but what about opportunities? And what about other sustainable development issues that threaten to bring businesses down? Continue reading “Article: Investors are asking the wrong questions about sustainability”

Article: Hound of Hounslow: Who is Navinder Sarao, the ‘flash crash trader’?

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Hound of Hounslow: Who is Navinder Sarao, the ‘flash crash trader’?

Andy Verity & Eleanor Lawrie, 28 January 2020

Former stock market trader Navinder Sarao has been sentenced to a year of home detention for helping trigger a brief $1tn (£770bn) stock market crash.

Dubbed the “Hound of Hounslow” in an ironic reference to the famous “Wolf of Wall Street” fraudster, the Briton was shown leniency by a Chicago judge due to the extraordinary circumstances of his case.

But who is he – and how did he help cause markets to plunge almost 4,000 miles away? Continue reading “Article: Hound of Hounslow: Who is Navinder Sarao, the ‘flash crash trader’?”

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