Paris – Financial Treason & Crime

Gaspard Sebag, 24 June 2021

Late M&A banker Jean-Marc Forneri’s Swiss lawyer and wealth manager were found guilty of helping him conceal assets and dodge taxes in a French crackdown on those who facilitate financial crime.

The Swiss lawyer, John Metzger, was given an 18-month suspended sentence and a fine of 300,000 euros ($359,000) by the Paris criminal court on Thursday and the wealth manager, Michel Glas, got a one-year suspended term and a 150,000 euro penalty. Continue reading “Article: Dead Banker’s Aides Guilty Over Secret Credit Suisse Stash”

06/06/202106/08/2021

Article: France probes Lebanese central bank chief’s wealth

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France probes Lebanese central bank chief’s wealth

AFP, 06 June 2021

PARIS: France has opened a probe into the personal wealth of Riad Salameh, central bank chief in crisis-hit Lebanon, sources told AFP Sunday.

Paris financial prosecutors have opened a preliminary probe into criminal association and money laundering by Salameh, a source close to the investigation and a judicial source said, following a similar move by Switzerland. Its findings could shed light onto the origins of the 70-year-old former Merill Lynch banker’s wealth. Continue reading “Article: France probes Lebanese central bank chief’s wealth”

05/18/202105/18/2021

Article: Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance faces scrutiny from UK’s Serious Fraud Office

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Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance faces scrutiny from UK’s Serious Fraud Office

Stuart Burns , 18 May 2021

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has gone public investigating charges that Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance (Gupta Family Group Alliance) holding company and subsidiaries, such as Liberty Steel, has been involved in fraud, fraudulent trading and money laundering.

As such, that has almost certainly put the end to refinancing efforts, at least for parts of the group in the UK. Continue reading “Article: Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance faces scrutiny from UK’s Serious Fraud Office”

03/25/202103/25/2021

Article: Covéa-SCOR conflict takes new twist

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Covéa-SCOR conflict takes new twist

Terry Gangcuangco, 25 March 2021

The soured relationship between Covéa Group and SCOR is not looking any better with the passing of time, with another major development likely to widen the rift between the two.

In a release, French mutual insurance group Covéa said it has filed “on behalf of SCOR” a complaint against the latter’s chief executive for alleged market manipulation and corporate assets misuse. Filed with the Parquet National Financier, the complaint against Denis Kessler spans actions taken between September 2018 and January 2019 involving a share buyback and so-called advisory expenses.

Reacting to the move by its biggest shareholder, the global reinsurer stated: “SCOR wonders what led Covéa to file this complaint, more than two years after it became aware of the facts it pretends to report. Continue reading “Article: Covéa-SCOR conflict takes new twist”

03/24/2021

Article: France’s Covea files complaint against CEO of reinsurer Scor

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France’s Covea files complaint against CEO of reinsurer Scor

Matthieu Protard, 24 March 2021

PARIS, March 24 (Reuters) – French insurer Covea has filed a complaint against the CEO of reinsurer Scor SCOR.PA, Denis Kessler, alleging market manipulation and misuse of corporate assets, it said on Wednesday.

Covea, which is Scor’s biggest shareholder with a 8.45% stake, based on Refinitiv data, said in a statement the complaint filed with financial prosecutors followed a 195 million euro ($230.63 million) share buyback that Covea alleged had “artificially” inflated Scor’s share price. Continue reading “Article: France’s Covea files complaint against CEO of reinsurer Scor”

06/19/201903/20/2021

Article: ECB’s Draghi brushes off Trump charge of currency manipulation

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ECB’s Draghi brushes off Trump charge of currency manipulation

News Desk, 19 June 2019

June 19: European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said Tuesday that the institution “doesn’t target the exchange rate”, shrugging off an allegation of currency manipulation from US President Donald Trump.

“We have our remit. We have our mandate. Our mandate is price stability” or inflation just below two percent, Draghi told a central banking conference in Sintra, Portugal.

“We are ready to use all the instruments that are necessary to fulfil this mandate, and we don’t target the exchange rate,” he added.

Draghi’s statement that weak economic growth and sluggish inflation could prompt the ECB to slash further rates already at historic lows had earlier sparked Trump’s ire.

“Mario Draghi just announced more stimulus could come, which immediately dropped the Euro against the Dollar, making it unfairly easier for them to compete against the USA,” Trump said on Twitter.

“They have been getting away with this for years, along with China and others,” he added.

Draghi said in a speech that “further cuts in policy interest rates… remain part of our tools” as the bank looks to juice growth and inflation.

Eurozone policymakers had already discussed potential rate cuts in early June, but Draghi’s latest remarks were the first to catch markets’ full attention.

That was in part because he said the central bank was ready to move “in the absence of improvement” rather than if economic conditions worsen, lowering the threshold for action.

But Trump later in the day continued to imply that the ECB was somehow looking to gain an advantage, rather than responding to economic conditions in the euro area.

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08/04/201503/20/2021

Article: RBS, Barclays, HSBC … it’s time to get out of coal!

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RBS, Barclays, HSBC … it’s time to get out of coal!

Greig Aitken BankTrack, 04 August 2015

In advance of the UN climate summit in Paris, campaign groups are urging the banking sector to take one concrete step towards combatting the climate crisis, and quit financing coal.

It is hard to think of a UK business sector in more dire need of an image boost than the banking sector. The UK’s three biggest banks – Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC – appear stuck on a never-ending, Escher-esque scandal treadmill of their own making.

Round and round they go, ripping off small businesses (RBS), enabling Latin American drug cartels to launder billions and orchestrating tax evasion in Switzerland (HSBC), and blatantly mis-selling payment protection insurance to vulnerable customers (Barclays).

This behaviour is of course accompanied by obscene bonuses that the same banks have still seen fit to churn out to staff as regularly as clockwork every year since the 2008 crash.

Reporting from outside RBS’s City of London headquarters in November last year as a further multi-bank scandal concerning illegal foreign exchange rate manipulation was breaking, the Economics Editor of Channel 4 News, Paul Mason, visibly fighting back the expletives, let rip on air:

“I’m just sick of it, after six years why do we have to keep coming to do it?”

He was referring to yet more time spent covering yet more market manipulation, with little in the way of effective sanctions being dished out to prevent it, Mason’s angst summed up the UK public’s views about the banks.

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