Citibank – Page 5 – Financial Treason & Crime

Giambrone, 25 January 2015

Financial service giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. has reached a $100 million settlement to resolve a U.S. antitrust lawsuit that sought damages for the alleged rigging of foreign currency markets, in which investors accused 12 major banks of rigging prices in the $5 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market in the case of In re: Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-07789.

JP Morgan will pay about $100 million and settled the case after mediation with Kenneth Feinberg, an American attorney, specializing in mediation and alternative dispute resolution. Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC, RBS and UBS also settled with regulators in November for an additional $3.3 billion. Continue reading “Article: JP Morgan agrees to pay $100 million to settle a Currency Manipulation Lawsuit in New York”

01/08/201503/20/2021

Article: Arrested RBS forex trader named as Paul Nash: sources

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Arrested RBS forex trader named as Paul Nash: sources

Jamie McGeever, Kirstin Ridley, 08 January 2015

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Bank of Scotland currency trader Paul Nash has become the first individual arrested in connection with a global inquiry into alleged manipulation in the foreign exchange market, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Nash, who was suspended by RBS in 2013, was named by the sources as the man arrested in Billericay, southeast England, on Dec. 19. One of the sources said his arrest came only days before he emigrated to Canada.

Nash emigrated to Canada on Christmas Day and has rented out his family home, the source said. His arrest was not by appointment, as is typical in such cases, but was an “arrest and raid”, the source added.

Nash, who has not been charged with any offense, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Dec. 23 over variations to his bail conditions, a court official confirmed. These included that he would reside at a specified address in British Columbia.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said only that a 48-year-old man had appeared at the London court on Dec. 23 in connection with a global investigation into allegations of manipulation in the $5.3 trillion-a-day forex market.

The increasingly aggressive agency, which is preparing for the trials this year of individuals alleged to have manipulated global benchmark interest rates, said last July that it might file the first charges in the high-profile inquiry this year.

About 30 forex traders have been put on leave, suspended or fired as prosecutors and regulators continue to examine allegations of wrongdoing in the world’s largest market.

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01/07/201505/18/2020

Article: JP Morgan Agrees New Settlement for FX Manipulation

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JP Morgan Agrees New Settlement for FX Manipulation

Profit & Loss, 7 January 2015

JP Morgan has agreed a settlement, believed to be worth $100 million, in an antitrust litigation lawsuit brought against 12 major banks for alleged manipulation of the FX market.

The bank submitted a letter to judge Lorna Scholfield of the Court of the Southern District of New York, stating that it had reached a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in this litigation and that is planning to file a copy of the settlement terms with the court for approval by the end of January.

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11/16/201403/20/2021

Article: Common currency: a forex scandal that epitomises the blindness in the banking crisis

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Common currency: a forex scandal that epitomises the blindness in the banking crisis

Andre Spicer, 16 November 2014

The biggest open secret in the financial world has been confirmed. Regulators in the UK, the US and Switzerland have announced massive fines for some of the world’s largest banks for a manipulation of global currency markets that in its callous ubiquity says so much about the banking behaviours that sparked the global financial crisis.

Fines levied by the UK regulator add up to £1.1 billion. The US regulator announced fines of $1.4 billion. Banks hit by these fines include UBS, Citi, JP Morgan, HSBC and RBS. Barclays is yet to come to a settlement on the back of the investigations.

The probe uncovered individuals traders within large banks who were working together in trading clubs which had names you would expect from the “ruthless narcissists” on BBC TV show, The Apprentice. These included “the players”, “the 3 musketeers” and “1 team, 1 dream”.

These clubs worked together to influence the WM Reuters 4pm fix – essentially the official number used to fix currency rates. It shapes everything from how much we pay for currency when we go overseas to how much our pension fund pays when it wants to buy into an offshore investment. This is one of the core numbers in global finance.

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11/12/201403/20/2021

Article: Regulators fine global banks $4.3 billion in currency investigation

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Regulators fine global banks $4.3 billion in currency investigation

Kirstin Ridley, Joshua Franklin, Aruna Viswanatha, 12 November 2014

Regulators fined six major banks a total of $4.3 billion for failing to stop traders from trying to manipulate the foreign exchange market, following a yearlong global investigation.

HSBC Holdings Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc, UBS AG and Bank of America Corp all faced penalties resulting from the inquiry, which has put the largely unregulated $5-trillion-a-day market on a tighter leash, accelerated the push to automate trading and ensnared the Bank of England.

Authorities accused dealers of sharing confidential information about client orders and coordinating trades to boost their own profits. The foreign exchange benchmark they allegedly manipulated is used by asset managers and corporate treasurers to value their holdings.

Dealers used code names to identify clients without naming them and swapped information in online chatrooms with pseudonyms such as “the players”, “the 3 musketeers” and “1 team, 1 dream.” Those who were not involved were belittled, and traders used obscene language to congratulate themselves on quick profits made from their scams, authorities said.

Wednesday’s fines bring total penalties for benchmark manipulation to more than $10 billion over two years. Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority levied the biggest penalty in the history of the City of London, $1.77 billion, against five of the lenders.

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11/12/201403/20/2021

Article: Six banks fined £2.6bn by regulators over forex failings

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Six banks fined £2.6bn by regulators over forex failings

BBC NEws , 12 November 2014

Six banks have been collectively fined £2.6bn by UK and US regulators over their traders’ attempted manipulation of foreign exchange rates. HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss bank UBS and US banks JP Morgan Chase, Citibank and Bank of America have all been fined.

A separate probe into Barclays is continuing. The fines were issued by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and two US regulators.

The country’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued fines of $1.4bn to five banks, while the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) added $950m in further fines to three lenders. Separately, the Swiss regulator, FINMA, has penalised UBS 134m Swiss francs.

Barclays, which had been expected to announce a similar deal to the other banks, said it would not be settling at this time.

“After discussions with other regulators and authorities, we have concluded that it is in the interests of the company to seek a more general coordinated settlement,” it said in a statement.

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06/17/201403/13/2021

Article: How to Explain the Number of Financial Crimes on Wall Street

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How to Explain the Number of Financial Crimes on Wall Street

Robert Lenzner, 17 June 2021

I ask everyone how to explain the stunning number of financial crimes we have witnessed the last several years and never get an adequate clear answer. The reason: it’s not easy to grasp why Bank of America , Citigroup , BNP-Paribas, UBS , Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase and a bevy of giant hedge funds are sweating their way through the demand for fines in the tens of billions or potential jail sentences as long as decades.

One reason it’s hard is that prosecution of the crimes comes so many years later than the crimes themselves. It’s hard to contemplate so many banks of marketing garbage mortgages, or laundering money for Iran, Sudan, and other rogue nations or radical groups, or secret bank accounts in Switzerland. The cops on the beat take much more time to act than the actual crimes took. Continue reading “Article: How to Explain the Number of Financial Crimes on Wall Street”

03/31/201403/15/2021

Article: Swiss probe banks over foreign exchange market

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Swiss probe banks over foreign exchange market

BBC News, 31 March 2014

RBS, Barclays, UBS, Credit Suisse, Zuercher Kantonal Bank, Julius Baer, JP Morgan and Citigroup are being probed by Swiss competition commission, Weko.

“Evidence exists that these banks colluded to manipulate exchange rates in foreign currency trades,” Weko said.

The regulator opened a preliminary investigation last October. Weko said the information it had so far suggested that most important exchange rates are affected.

Authorities worldwide are investigating allegations that some foreign exchange traders have colluded in setting certain key exchange rates in the foreign exchange market, resulting in big profits. Continue reading “Article: Swiss probe banks over foreign exchange market”

02/05/201405/18/2020

Article: Currency trading scandals are the next big black eye for banks

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Currency trading scandals are the next big black eye for banks

Mark DeCambre, Jason Karaian

Quartz, 5 February 2014

These days, it doesn’t take much digging to find potentially scandalous behavior coursing through the world’s biggest banks. But the latest round of probes into currency trading are shaping up to be a real doozy.

Already more than 20 traders, which make money for their firms by betting on currencies’ shifting values, have left or been placed on leave by their employers. These banks and traders have not been accused of wrongdoing, but their departures send a message that something is amiss in currency trading.

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11/04/201303/20/2021

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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01/04/201305/20/2020

Article: Secrets and Lies of the Bailout

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Secrets and Lies of the Bailout

Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone, 4 January 2013

It has been four long winters since the federal government, in the hulking, shaven-skulled, Alien Nation-esque form of then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, committed $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue Wall Street from its own chicanery and greed. To listen to the bankers and their allies in Washington tell it, you’d think the bailout was the best thing to hit the American economy since the invention of the assembly line. Not only did it prevent another Great Depression, we’ve been told, but the money has all been paid back, and the government even made a profit. No harm, no foul – right?

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12/28/201205/25/2020

Article: The Federal Reserve Bank is Naked: QE 10T Dollar ‘Loans’ Swaps and Naked Mortgage Bonds of Quantitative Easing 1

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The Federal Reserve Bank is Naked: QE 10T Dollar ‘Loans’ Swaps and Naked Mortgage Bonds of Quantitative Easing 1

Lan Pham

Economics Voodoo, 28 December 2012

The banking and financial crisis emerging in September 2008 is often called a global financial crisis, but to be more precise the data point to a crisis of the Western central banks. I referenced euros previously, so this is the euros companion to Quantitative Easing 0-1-2-3∞ & The Federal Reserve’s Love Affair with its Banks and Mortgage Bonds: Levitating The Black Hole. QE 0-1-2-3 is incomplete as concurrently the Federal Reserve Bank also entered into $10.06 Trillion in dollar ‘loans’ liquidity swaps with foreign central banks that we examine in Section I. Why QE $10T as we look at a few of Europe’s largest banks in Section II, which leads us to the $1.25 Trillion naked reasons behind the Federal Reserve Bank’s Quantitative Easing I purchase of phantom agency mortgage bonds that we revisit more closely in Section III.

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05/20/201203/13/2021

Article: Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis

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Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis

Charles Ferguson, 20 May 2012

Bernard L Madoff ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, operating it for 30 years and causing cash losses of $19.5bn. Shortly after the scheme collapsed and Madoff confessed in 2008, evidence began to surface that for years, major banks had suspected he was a fraud. None of them reported their suspicions to the authorities, and several banks decided to make money from him without, of course, risking any of their own funds. Theories about his fraud varied. Some thought he might have access to insider information. But quite a few thought he was running a Ponzi scheme. Goldman Sachs executives paid a visit to Madoff to see if they should recommend him to clients. A partner later recalled: “Madoff refused to let them do any due diligence on the funds and when asked about the firm’s investment strategy they couldn’t understand it. Goldman not only blacklisted Madoff in the asset management division but banned its brokerage from trading with the firm too.” Continue reading “Article: Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis”

11/28/201105/08/2020

Filing: SEC v Citigroup

Filing

SEC v Citigroup

28 November 2011

On October 19, 2011, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
(the “S.E.C.”) filed this lawsuit, accusing defendant Citigroup
Global Markets Inc. (“Citigroup”) of a substantial securities fraud.
According to the S.E.C.’s Complaint, after Citigroup realized in
early 2007 that the market for mortgage-backed securities was
beginning to weaken, Citigroup created a billion-dollar Fund (known
as “Class V Funding III”) that allowed it to dump some dubious assets
on misinformed investors.

PDF (15 pages): SEC v Citigroup

02/17/201005/20/2020

Article: Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle

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Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle

Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone, 17 February 2010

On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America’s pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman’s role in precipitating the global financial crisis.

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