Tag: Merrill Lynch

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Filing: Overstock.com v Goldman Sachs & Co

Filing

Overstock.com v Goldman Sachs & Co

13 November 2014

Often, it is the federal courts, applying federal law, that wrestle with claims of cross-state securities fraud involving a nationally-listed stock. Here, plaintiffs of various states allege defendants, securities firms headquartered on the East Coast, violated California and New Jersey law through their involvement in massive naked short selling of Overstock shares. The trial court sustained demurrers to plaintiffs’ New Jersey Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) claim without leave to amend and subsequently granted summary judgment on plaintiffs’ California market manipulation claims.

PDF (61 pages): Overstock.com v Goldman Sachs & Co

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Filing: FINRA v Merrill Lynch

Filing

FINRA v Merrill Lynch

27 October 2014

Between approximately July 1, 2008 through July 2012, MLPRO failed to establish, maintain and enforce adequate supervisory systems and procedures, including in some instances written supervisory procedures, that were reasonably designed to ensure compliance with applicable securities laws and regulations including Regulation SHO, the 2008 Emergency Orders issued by the SEC and anti-money laundering requirements.

PDF (20 pages): FINRA v Merrill Lynch

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Article: Naked Gold Shorts: The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation

Article - Media

Naked Gold Shorts: The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation

Commodity Trade Mantra, 20 January 2014

The deregulation of the financial system during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes had the predictable result: financial concentration and reckless behavior. A handful of banks grew so large that financial authorities declared them “too big to fail.” Removed from market discipline, the banks became wards of the government requiring massive creation of new money by the Federal Reserve in order to support through the policy of Quantitative Easing the prices of financial instruments on the banks’ balance sheets and in order to finance at low interest rates trillion dollar federal budget deficits associated with the long recession caused by the financial crisis.

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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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Filing: Anschutz Corp. v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., 11-1305

Filing

Anschutz Corp. v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., 11-1305

FindLaw, 14 August 2012

In a suit against Merrill Lynch and others, claiming market manipulation, fraud, control person liability, and negligent misrepresentation, district court’s judgment in favor of the defendants is affirmed where: 1) the market manipulation claims fail for the same reasons identified in Wilson v. Merrill Lynch & Co., which held that the same website disclosure at issue in this case contained sufficient information about Merrill Lynch’s support bidding practices to preclude a market manipulation claim; 2) district court properly dismissed the California Corporations Code claims as plaintiff fails to allege any injury or unlawful conduct in California; and 3) district court properly dismissed the negligent misrepresentation claims against the Rating Agency defendants as plaintiff fails to allege an actionable misrepresentation under New York law.

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Article: Barron’s Gary Weiss Caught Plagiarizing Matt Taibbi, Find-Replaces Style With Spin

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Barron’s Gary Weiss Caught Plagiarizing Matt Taibbi, Find-Replaces Style With Spin

Patrick Byrne

DeepCapture, 7 August 2012

Two months ago a schlubby-but-savage Goldman lawyer named Joseph E. Floren made a mistake that caused some previously redacted information about Goldman Sachs to slip into the public’s hands. The event was ably covered by such globally-respected publications as Bloomberg, the Economist, and Rolling Stone.

Since May I have wondered, With the truth emerge at last in publications such as Economist, Bloomberg, and Rolling Stone, surely the Bad Guys must understand they have lost control of the narrative. Surely, I thought, they are working out some new damage control strategy to deflect or usurp the truth as it comes out.

And as always, Gary Weiss doesn’t let us down.

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Article: Naked Short Selling is Real – And It’s Fucking Up Our Economy

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Naked Short Selling is Real – And It’s Fucking Up Our Economy

Ben Makuch

Vice, 27 June 2012

Unfortunately, like many people out there, I don’t know my ass from my elbow when it comes to the economy. Sure I know a few terms like “recession” and “stock,” but ask me to explain stuff like the “Eurozone crisis” and I’ll get as far as “Apocalyptic omen.” That’s probably why businessmen can get away with pretty much anything; half of their concepts are so convoluted you need to have at least gave a shit about high school calculus to understand them, which most of us didn’t.

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Article: Lawyers For The Major Banks Accidentally Leaked E-mails About Their Clients Naked Short-Selling Overstock.com

Article - Media

Lawyers For The Major Banks Accidentally Leaked E-mails About Their Clients Naked Short-Selling Overstock.com

Linette Lopez

Business Insider, 16 May 2012

For years, Overstock.com has been in a legal battle with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and more. The online retailer accuses the banks of naked short-selling its stock.

Overstock.com lost that battle, but they’re still trying to get the banks to unseal documents that would prove their case.

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Article: Accidentally Released – and Incredibly Embarrassing – Documents Show How Goldman et al Engaged in ‘Naked Short Selling’

Article - Media

Accidentally Released – and Incredibly Embarrassing – Documents Show How Goldman et al Engaged in ‘Naked Short Selling’

Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone, 15 May 2012

The lawyers for Goldman and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch have been involved in a legal battle for some time – primarily with the retail giant Overstock.com, but also with Rolling Stone, the Economist, Bloomberg, and the New York Times. The banks have been fighting us to keep sealed certain documents that surfaced in the discovery process of an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit filed by Overstock against the banks.

Last week, in response to an Overstock.com motion to unseal certain documents, the banks’ lawyers, apparently accidentally, filed an unredacted version of Overstock’s motion as an exhibit in their declaration of opposition to that motion. In doing so, they inadvertently entered into the public record a sort of greatest-hits selection of the very material they’ve been fighting for years to keep sealed.

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Article: Merrill Lynch fined for violating cotton-speculation limits

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Merrill Lynch fined for violating cotton-speculation limits

Kevin G. Hall

McClatchy Newspapers, 7 December  2011

A key financial regulator said Wednesday that it had fined Wall Street powerhouse Merrill Lynch $350,000 for violating rules that limit how many speculative contracts it can hold in markets where bets are made on the price of cotton for future delivery.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said that Merrill Lynch Commodities Inc., a subsidiary of Bank of America, repeatedly had violated limits on how many Cotton No. 2 futures contracts it was allowed to hold. Futures are bets on where the price of a given commodity will be for future delivery.

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Article: SEC under Schapiro struggles to turn around amid political, financial head winds

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SEC under Schapiro struggles to turn around amid political, financial head winds

David S. Hilzenrath

Washington Post, 7 October 2011

Mary L. Schapiro took over a discredited SEC in early 2009 and vowed to rebuild it.

She promised tougher enforcement — “war without quarter” on financial fraud. Modernized rules to keep up with Wall Street. And a new, more effective organization.

Her tenure at the federal agency responsible for protecting investors and policing markets offers a Washington lesson: Even when epic crises create a sense of urgency, it is tough to tighten the reins on powerful industries. Dramatic results can prove elusive.

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Testimony: Mary Schapiro’s Testimony Concerning the State of the Financial Crisis

Testimony

Testimony Concerning the State of the Financial Crisis

Mary L. Schapiro

SEC, 14 January 2010

I believe the work of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) is essential to helping policymakers and the public better understand the causes of the recent financial crisis and build a better regulatory structure. Indeed, just over seventy-five years ago, a similar Congressional committee was tasked with investigating the causes of the stock market crash of 1929. The hearings of that committee led by Ferdinand Pecora uncovered widespread fraud and abuse on Wall Street, including self-dealing and market manipulation among investment banks and their securities affiliates. The public airing of this abuse galvanized support for legislation that created the Securities and Exchange Commission in July 1934. Based on lessons learned from the Pecora investigation, Congress passed laws premised on the need to protect investors by requiring disclosure of material information and outlawing deceptive practices in the sale of securities.

PDF (29 pages): Testimony Concerning the State of the Financial Crisis

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Article: Former Merrill Lynch official settles Enron allegations

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Former Merrill Lynch official settles Enron allegations

Nick Snow

OGJ, 11 January 2010

Daniel H. Bayly, Merrill Lynch & Co.’s (ML) former global head of investment banking, settled civil charges of aiding and abetting the Enron Corp. fraud, the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced.

SEC said US District Court in Houston entered a final judgment on Dec. 31, 2009, ordering Bayly, who neither admitted nor denied SEC’s allegations, to pay $301,000 for deposit in the commission’s Enron Fair Fund and to not serve as an officer or director of a publicly traded company for 5 years. He also was enjoined from violating federal antifraud provisions and from aiding and abetting violations of the periodic reporting, books-and-records, and internal control provisions, SEC said.

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