Article: Man jailed for computer fraud of over €300,000

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Man jailed for computer fraud of over €300,000

Barry Roche, 26 November 2013

A man has been jailed for five years after he pleaded guilty to computer fraud offences involving the theft of more than €300,000 from a multinational company within months of starting work for the firm.

Dadibaku Ngkupumu (47), McWilliam Green, Fortunestown, Tallaght, Dublin, a Congolese national, pleaded guilty to 17 fraud offences from Avery Dennison at Cork Airport Business Park between November 2012 and January 2013.

At Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, Judge David Riordan described it as “classic case of white-collar crime” by Ngkupumu.

Det Garda Aonghus Cotter told how Ngkupumu had diverted €336,819.27 from Avery Dennison to fake bank accounts set up in Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.

He also attempted to transfer a further €304,188.04 to the same fake bank accounts in another series of transactions while working in Avery Dennison’s financial payments section.
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Article: Hedge fund giant SAC Capital to pay $1.8B penalty

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Hedge fund giant SAC Capital to pay $1.8B penalty

LARRY NEUMEISTER, 05 November 2013

SAC Capital Advisors will plead guilty to criminal fraud charges, stop investing money for others and pay $1.8 billion — the largest financial penalty in history for insider trading — to resolve criminal and civil claims against the hedge fund giant, the government announced Monday.

The government said in a letter to judges presiding over Manhattan cases that the “proposed global resolution” of the criminal and civil cases against SAC Capital Advisors and related companies also includes an agreement that SAC will cease operating as an investment adviser and will not accept any additional funds from third-party investors. Continue reading “Article: Hedge fund giant SAC Capital to pay $1.8B penalty”

Article: Steve Cohen Unclear On Insider Trading Rules In 2011 Deposition

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Steve Cohen Unclear On Insider Trading Rules In 2011 Deposition

Matthew Zeitlin, 06 November 2013

Steven A. Cohen’s hedge fund SAC capital will pay $1.8 billion fines for violating laws that Cohen once described as “very vague.”

SAC Capital, plead guilty Monday to five counts of wire and securities fraud in what U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara described as insider trading “on a scale without any known precedent in the history of hedge funds.” The fund agreed to pay $1.2 billion in penalties to settle the charges in addition to over $600 million SAC paid in a SEC settlement in March and to shut down its investing of outside money. Continue reading “Article: Steve Cohen Unclear On Insider Trading Rules In 2011 Deposition”

Article: Steve Cohen On Tape: The Scorecard

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Steve Cohen On Tape: The Scorecard

BESS LEVIN, 06 November 2013

Several years back, SAC Capital manager Steve Cohen sat for two days of deposition as part of a lawsuit filed by Canadian insurer Fairfax Financial filed against a group of hedge funds that included SAC. At one point, Cohen was questioned about insider trading, his fund’s policy on insider trading, and his personal views on insider trading, as reported by Reuters at the time the transcripts were unsealed. Continue reading “Article: Steve Cohen On Tape: The Scorecard”

Article: Exclusive: Watch Billionaire Steven Cohen Stumble Over Insider Trading Rules

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Exclusive: Watch Billionaire Steven Cohen Stumble Over Insider Trading Rules

Rain Media and PBS FRONTLINE have obtained a never-before-published video in which hedge fund titan Steven A. Cohen.

Whose firm this week pleaded guilty to securities fraud, describes federal securities laws as “vague,” and asks for an explanation of the basic Securities and Exchange Commission rule that prohibits insider trading.

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Article: An insider-trading conviction condemns Steve Cohen to becoming the 59th-richest American

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An insider-trading conviction condemns Steve Cohen to becoming the 59th-richest American

US federal prosecutors threw the book today at SAC Capital Advisors, forcing the hedge fund to plead guilty to insider trading and pay a total of $1.8 billion to the government, the largest penalty ever for the offense.

The case revolved around allegations that SAC portfolio managers repeatedly obtained inside information about major firms and used it to beat the markets. US Attorney Preet Bharara, the lead prosecutor, presented it as a major victory against insider trading by punishing an entire firm for a culture of corruption.

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Article: SAC Capital Pleads Guilty to Decade-Long Insider Trading Conspiracy

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SAC Capital Pleads Guilty to Decade-Long Insider Trading Conspiracy

ANTOINE GARA, 04 November 2013

Steven A. Cohen’s hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors agreed to plead guilty to federal charges that it violated insider trading laws and will pay a record $1.8 billion in fines and restitution.

In July, a grand jury indicted SAC Capital and its affiliates for one count of wire fraud and four counts of securities fraud, in an insider trading conspiracy U.S. prosecutors alleged lasted over a decade and led to hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal profits and avoided losses. Continue reading “Article: SAC Capital Pleads Guilty to Decade-Long Insider Trading Conspiracy”

Article: Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors hit with record insider trading penalty

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Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors hit with record insider trading penalty

TOM INCANTALUPO, 04 November 2013

Billionaire Steven A. Cohen, whose hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors has agreed to pay a record penalty for insider trading, is a native Long Islander known as a high-rolling art collector and philanthropist as well as a savvy investor.

Cohen wasn’t personally charged by federal officials. Continue reading “Article: Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors hit with record insider trading penalty”

Article: HSBC dragged into forex probe, reveals profits jump

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HSBC dragged into forex probe, reveals profits jump

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, 04 November 2013

LONDON: A worldwide probe into suspected rigging of foreign exchange deals has reached Europe’s biggest bank HSBC, the bank revealed when it also announced a jump in quarterly profits.
The London-based bank said in its earnings statement that British regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, is conducting investigations alongside several other global agencies into a number of firms, including HSBC, “relating to trading on the foreign exchange market”.

HSBC said it was “cooperating with the investigations which are at an early stage”.

It comes as the British bank announced a 28-percent increase in net profit to $3.2 billion (2.37 billion euros) during the three months to the end to September on major cost-cutting and lower bad debt charges.

HSBC had posted profit after tax of $2.5 billion in the third quarter of 2012.

“Revenue was stable in the third quarter (of 2013), influenced by the mixed global macroeconomic picture,” HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver said in a statement.
“Our home markets of the UK and Hong Kong contributed more than half of the group’s underlying profit before tax.”

Gulliver added: “Hong Kong continues to benefit from its close economic relationship with mainland China. We remain well positioned to capitalise on improving economic conditions in these markets.”

HSBC said it would continue to focus on reducing its cost base after savings of $400 million over the third quarter and total cuts since the start of 2011 of $4.5 billion.

“This is well in excess of the target we set out to achieve by the end of 2013. We re-invested part of these savings in risk and compliance, increasing headcount by 1,600 since December 2012,” Gulliver said.

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Article: SAC to pay $1.8 billion to settle insider trading charges

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SAC to pay $1.8 billion to settle insider trading charges

Reuters, 04 November 2013

Billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen’s days as a hedge fund manager may be finished with an agreement by his SAC Capital Advisors to plead guilty to criminal charges of insider trading and pay a record $1.8 billion in fines and forfeitures.

But Cohen, one of Wall Street’s best known traders, has not been personally charged with any crime and will likely continue managing some $9 billion of his own money through a family office once his hedge fund’s plea deal is cleared by the courts. Continue reading “Article: SAC to pay $1.8 billion to settle insider trading charges”

Article: Steven Cohen May Sell Stock in Company Whose Founder Went to Prison For Insider Trading

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Steven Cohen May Sell Stock in Company Whose Founder Went to Prison For Insider Trading

ALEXANDR OLEINIC, 17 October 2013

Steven Cohen, SAC Capital, Insider Trading: According to an update from Reuters Business on Twitter, Steven Cohen‘s hedge fund SAC Capital would like to sell its position in the privately-owned company Kadmon Pharmaceuticals. As the outlet points out, “Kadmon was founded by Sam Waksal, who served a five year prison term for insider stock trading.” Continue reading “Article: Steven Cohen May Sell Stock in Company Whose Founder Went to Prison For Insider Trading”

Article: Former Royal Bank of Scotland trader linked to currency market fixing

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Former Royal Bank of Scotland trader linked to currency market fixing

Jill Treanor, 12 OCtober 2013

Electronic messages that Royal Bank of Scotland handed to the City regulator in connection with potential manipulation of the £3tn-a day currency market are reported to have been sent by the bailed-out bank’s former trader Richard Usher.

The messages are said to be among those handed to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) by the bank, which is 81% owned by the taxpayer.

Usher, who could not be reached for comment, is now the head of spot trading at JP Morgan in London. He has been listed as a member of a Bank of England committee that polices a voluntary code of group practice for the markets.

The regulatory review by the FCA, which has not yet escalated its inquiries into a formal investigation, implies no wrongdoing by Usher, according to the Bloomberg news agency, which revealed his identity.

The analysis of the electronic messages is the latest move by regulators to test the integrity of benchmarks used to price financial products in the light of the Libor-rigging scandal as well as manipulation of gas prices. The investigation was triggered by reports in the Guardian last year.

The FCA said in June it was looking at foreign exchange markets after Bloomberg reported that traders at some banks were sharing information about their positions through instant messages. These were said to be a way to manipulate an index compiled by WM/Reuters and based on prices of currencies for a 60-second period.

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Article: Looting the Pension Funds All across America, Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers

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Looting the Pension Funds

All across America, Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers

Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone, 10 October 2013

Raimondo’s strategy for saving money involved handing more than $1 billion – 14 percent of the state fund – to hedge funds, including a trio of well-known New York-based funds: Dan Loeb’s Third Point Capital was given $66 million, Ken Garschina’s Mason Capital got $64 million and $70 million went to Paul Singer’s Elliott Management.

The state’s workers, in other words, were being forced to subsidize their own political disenfranchisement, coughing up at least $200 million to members of a group that had supported anti-labor laws.

This is the third act in an improbable triple-fucking of ordinary people that Wall Street is seeking to pull off as a shocker epilogue to the crisis era.

Baker reported that, had public pension funds not been invested in the stock market and exposed to mortgage-backed securities, there would be no shortfall at all.

It’s a scam of almost unmatchable balls and cruelty, accomplished with the aid of some singularly spineless politicians. And it hasn’t happened overnight. This has been in the works for decades, and the fighting has been dirty all the way.

Union leaders all over the country have started to figure out the perils of hiring a bunch of overpriced Wall Street wizards to manage the public’s money.

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Article: RBS releases documents over alleged currency manipulation

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RBS releases documents over alleged currency manipulation

Jill Treanor, 09 October 2013

Royal Bank of Scotland has handed the City regulator messages sent by one of its former traders in the latest twist in an investigation into potential manipulation of currency rates.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) began an investigation into the £3tn-a-day foreign exchange market in June following allegations that traders at major banks had found ways to manipulate a closely followed currency benchmark. Continue reading “Article: RBS releases documents over alleged currency manipulation”

Article: Biolase CEO Takes Dead Aim At Naked Short Sellers – Main Street Cheers

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Biolase CEO Takes Dead Aim At Naked Short Sellers – Main Street Cheers

Seeking Alpha, 20 August 2013

Federico Pignatelli, Chairman and CEO of Biolase Inc. (NASDAQ:BIOL) called out naked short sellers and short-sellers attempting to manipulate shares of BIOL August 19th, in a candid press release. In short Mr. Pignatelli disclosed that Biolase will continue to issue stock dividends on a periodic basis to reward long-term shareholders and thwart the naked short selling of Biolase stock.

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