Tag: USA

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Article: Fincrime Briefing: UBS pays to settle laundering probe, U.S., South Korea take down largest crypto-fueled child exploitation site, DOJ guidance on fines when you can’t pay, and more

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Fincrime Briefing: UBS pays to settle laundering probe, U.S., South Korea take down largest crypto-fueled child exploitation site, DOJ guidance on fines when you can’t pay, and more

Brian Monroe, 17 October 2019

UBS pays $11 million to settle Italian money laundering probe, tied to tax fracas An Italian judge has accepted a request by UBS to pay more than 10 million euros ($11 million) to settle a money-laundering investigation, ending one of the Swiss bank’s biggest legal headaches in Europe, just the latest in a series of international probes and settlements tied to financial crime and compliance failures.

UBS has been grappling with two separate probes in Italy and a court case in France over allegations it enabled cross-border tax cheats to hide assets in Switzerland.

The judge on Thursday accepted the payment of 2.125 million euros as “agreed penalty” to close the case while also seizing 8.175 million euros as profit from the alleged money-laundering, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The settlement, which by Italian law is not an admission of guilt, was requested by UBS in July, after a deal with Italian prosecutors. Last June, the Swiss bank paid 101 million euros to settle its other Italian case, a related financial investigation, with tax authorities. Continue reading “Article: Fincrime Briefing: UBS pays to settle laundering probe, U.S., South Korea take down largest crypto-fueled child exploitation site, DOJ guidance on fines when you can’t pay, and more”

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Article: Collusion with Trump over Russia inquiry ‘did not happen’, says Raab

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Collusion with Trump over Russia inquiry ‘did not happen’, says Raab

Patrick Wintour, 02 October 2019

No member of the British government, including the prime minister, would ever collude with Donald Trump to try to discredit the work of intelligence agencies uncovering Russian interference in the 2016 US election, the UK foreign secretary said.

Dominic Raab told the Commons that “any such collusion is entirely unacceptable, would never happen, and did not happen”.

The foreign secretary refused to say at prime minister’s questions whether Boris Johnson, or his predecessor, Theresa May, had spoken to the US president about any request to cooperate with the inquiry he had ordered into how the US intelligence agencies handled claims that Russia colluded with the Trump presidential campaign in 2016.

The collusion claim led to the lengthy report by Robert Mueller, which showed that Russia was attempting to swing the presidential election in favour of Trump but did not say whether there had been collusion between Russia and Trump.

Raab was asked whether, as reported in the Times, Trump had personally contacted Johnson to ask him to cooperate with the US inquiry.

The Labour MP Ben Bradshaw implied that the purpose of any Trump request might be “to undermine or smear British intelligence services, as well as damage cooperation with their US colleagues”.

Raab, deputising for Johnson at prime minister’s questions, said: “Neither the prime minister or, as then, the foreign secretary, would collude in the way that he described. That is entirely unacceptable and would never happen and did not happen.”

It is noticeable that the British government has been less willing than either the Australian or Italian governments to give details of help given to Trump’s inquiry into the role of the US intelligence services.

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Article: London forex trader sues Citigroup over ‘malicious’ forex prosecution

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London forex trader sues Citigroup over ‘malicious’ forex prosecution

Kirstin Ridley, 02 October 2019

Rohan Ramchandani, the former European head of Citigroup’s forex spot market trading desk, alleges in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday that Citigroup made false and “gravely derogatory” assertions against him to government investigators and the media after firing him in 2014 without cause.

“Ultimately, Citi quite literally fabricated an antitrust case for the United States Department of Justice against Ramchandani based upon knowingly false allegations that he engaged in market ‘manipulation’ and ‘collusion’,” read the complaint filed in the federal court in Manhattan.

A spokeswoman for Citigroup in London said the bank rejected the allegations and would fight the case.

“Mr. Ramchandani’s claims of malicious prosecution are without merit and we will contest them vigorously,” she said.

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Article: China accuses US of ‘deliberately destroying’ world order

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China accuses US of ‘deliberately destroying’ world order

Dominic Rushe , Lily Kuo, 06 August 2019

China stepped up the trade war rhetoric on Tuesday, accusing the US of “deliberately destroying international order” with “unilateralism and protectionism”.

A day after Washington branded China a currency manipulator in a rapidly escalating trade dispute, China’s central bank said it “deeply regretted” the move by the US and said such behaviour “seriously undermined international rules” and damaged the global economy. Continue reading “Article: China accuses US of ‘deliberately destroying’ world order”

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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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Article: Draghi brushes off Trump accusation of currency manipulation

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Draghi brushes off Trump accusation of currency manipulation

EURACTIV, 19 June 2019

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said Tuesday (18 June) 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.
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Article: Solidus Raises $3 Million in Seed Financing to Tackle Digital Asset Market Manipulation

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Solidus Raises $3 Million in Seed Financing to Tackle Digital Asset Market Manipulation

Business Wire, 25 February 2019

Solidus Labs, provider of a machine learning-powered trade surveillance platform tailored for digital assets, secured a $3 million seed round of financing led by Hanaco Ventures. Additional participants in the round include Global Founders Capital, as well as angel investors and Wall Street veterans David Krell and Norman Sorensen. With the proceeds Solidus’ team of former Goldman Sachs engineers is set to address a major challenge preventing greater institutional and mainstream adoption of digital assets – trade manipulation and market integrity.

Solidus’ web-based platform is already deployed with diverse clients including exchanges, broker-dealers, hedge funds and market makers in Europe, the United States and Israel. The funding round will be used to continue expanding the company’s engineering and machine learning teams, as well as sales, marketing and customer success operations. Solidus is accommodating growing demand from digital asset firms, as those strive to satisfy intensifying regulatory oversight and high compliance standards of traditional financial institutions. Continue reading “Article: Solidus Raises $3 Million in Seed Financing to Tackle Digital Asset Market Manipulation”

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Article: EU Regulators Charge Credit Suisse with Rigging FX Markets

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EU Regulators Charge Credit Suisse with Rigging FX Markets

Celeste Skinner, 01 August 2018

Credit Suisse Group AG announced on Tuesday that it has been charged by European Union antitrust regulators with manipulating forex rates. The charges signal the five-year-long investigation might be coming to a close in the near future.

In a regulatory filing, the allegations state that Credit Suisse “engaged in anti-competitive practices in connection with its foreign exchange trading business.” Now, the Wall Street bank will need to wait and see if the EU regulators will impose a fine, which could be up to 10% of its global turnover. Continue reading “Article: EU Regulators Charge Credit Suisse with Rigging FX Markets”

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Article: Deutsche Bank fined $205 mn in US for forex manipulation

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Deutsche Bank fined $205 mn in US for forex manipulation

Phys.org, 20 June 2018

US officials fined embattled German banking giant Deutsche Bank $205 million in a settlement to resolve foreign exchange market manipulation violations, New York’s top banking regulator announced Wednesday. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank fined $205 mn in US for forex manipulation”

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Article: Deutsche Bank fined $205m in the US for foreign exchange manipulation

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Deutsche Bank fined $205m in the US for foreign exchange manipulation

AGENCY STAFF, 20 June 2018

New York — US officials fined embattled German banking giant Deutsche Bank $205m in a settlement to resolve foreign exchange market manipulation violations, New York’s top banking regulator announced on Wednesday. Deutsche Bank’s violations included improperly co-ordinating trading activity with other financial institutions to boost the bank’s own profits, the New York state department of financial services (DFS) said. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank fined $205m in the US for foreign exchange manipulation”

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Article: Britain’s collusion with radical Islam: Interview with Mark Curtis

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Britain’s collusion with radical Islam: Interview with Mark Curtis

Ian Sinclair, 18 March 2018

A former Research Fellow at Chatham House and the ex-Director of the World Development Movement, British historian Mark Curtis has published several books on UK foreign policy, including 2003’s Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World, endorsed by Noam Chomsky and John Pilger. Ian Sinclair asked Curtis about the recently published new edition of his 2010 book Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam.

Ian Sinclair: With the so-called ‘war on terror’ the dominant framework for understanding Western foreign policy since 9/11, the central argument of your book – that Britain has been colluding with radical Islam for decades – will be a shock to many people. Can you give some examples?

Mark Curtis: UK governments – Conservative and Labour – have been colluding for decades with two sets of Islamist actors which have strong connections with each other.

In the first group are the major state sponsors of Islamist terrorism, the two most important of which are key British allies with whom London has long-standing strategic partnerships – Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The second group includes extremist private movements and organisations whom Britain has worked alongside and sometimes trained and financed, in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives. The roots of this lie in divide and rule policies under colonialism but collusion of this type took off in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when Britain, along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, covertly supported the resistance to defeat the Soviet occupation of the country. After the jihad in Afghanistan, Britain had private dealings of one kind or another with militants in various organisations, including Pakistan’s Harkat ul-Ansar, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), all of which had strong links to Bin Laden’s al-Qaida. Covert actions have been undertaken with these and other forces in Central Asia, North Africa and Eastern Europe.

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Article: Deutsche Bank Ordered to Pay $70 Million for Manipulation of USD Swap Rates

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Deutsche Bank Ordered to Pay $70 Million for Manipulation of USD Swap Rates

Finance Magnates Staff, 02 February 2018

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an order directed at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (DBSI), to pay a $70 million civil monetary penalty over charges of attempted manipulation of the ISDAFIX benchmark, between 2007 and 2012.

The US Dollar International Swaps and Derivatives Association Fix is a global benchmark, used in the settlement of various interest rate products, including cash settlement of options on interest rate swaps. The allegations indicate that Deutsche Bank and some of its traders intentionally attempted to manipulate the benchmark, in an effort to benefit the bank’s positions. The specific USD ISDAFIX rates and spreads that the bank attempted to alter are the ones issued at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time each day, and act as a mid-market rate to accommodate settlements across various financial markets. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank Ordered to Pay $70 Million for Manipulation of USD Swap Rates”

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Article: FBI arrests senior HSBC banker accused of rigging multibillion-dollar deal

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FBI arrests senior HSBC banker accused of rigging multibillion-dollar deal

Rupert Neate in New York and Jill Treanor in London, 20 July 2016

Mark Johnson and a colleague allegedly defrauded clients and ‘manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank’

A senior HSBC banker has been arrested by the FBI as he attempted to board a transatlantic flight and charged him with fraudulently rigging a multibillion-dollar currency exchange deal.

Mark Johnson, a British citizen and HSBC’s global head of foreign exchange trading, and a colleague are accused of “defrauding clients” and alleged to have “corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank”.

He was arrested on Tuesday night shortly before he was due to fly to London from New York’s JFK airport, and was due to be formally charged by a judge at Brooklyn federal court later on Wednesday. He was later released on bail.

A second Briton, Stuart Scott, who was HSBC’s European head of foreign exchange trading in London until December 2014, is accused of the same crimes. A warrant was issued for Scott’s arrest.

They are the first people to be charged in connection with the US government’s long-running investigation into bankers’ alleged rigging of the $5.3tn (£4tn) per day forex market.

“The defendants allegedly betrayed their client’s confidence, and corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank,” said the US assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell. “This case demonstrates the [US Department of Justice’s] criminal division’s commitment to hold corporate executives, including at the world’s largest and most sophisticated institutions, responsible for their crimes.”

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Article: Forbes Flashback: How George Soros Broke The British Pound And Why Hedge Funds Probably Can’t Crack The Euro

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Forbes Flashback: How George Soros Broke The British Pound And Why Hedge Funds Probably Can’t Crack The Euro

Forbes, 07 June 2015

Greek citizens voted against further austerity measures demanded by the Troika financing their rescue package, casting even more doubt on the country’s future as a member of the eurozone and throwing bond and currency markets into an uproar.

The euro has plunged from $1.20 to $1.09 this year (see chart). The feared unraveling of the currency – which, admittedly, would take a lot more than Greece’s departure – calls to mind another currency fiasco from the early 1990s, when George Soros and a group of other investors that included fellow hedge fund managers Paul Tudor Jones and Bruce Kovner, bet against a central bank’s ability to hold the line on its currency.

Forbes took a deep dive into that trade in the November 9, 1992 issue, illuminating how Soros made $1.5 billion in just a single month by betting the British pound and several other European currencies were priced too richly against the German deutsche mark.

The entire group cashed in big-time. Jones’ funds made $250 million, while Kovner’s Caxton Corp. rang the register to the tune of $300 million, but no one made more than Soros, who cleared $1.5 billion in that fateful month of September. (The score made Soros’ legend and swelled his firm’s coffers; assets under management jumped to $7 billion, from $3.3 billion, by mid-October 1992, and to $11 billion by the end of 1993.)

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Article: Deutsche Bank hit by record $2.5bn Libor-rigging fine

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Deutsche Bank hit by record $2.5bn Libor-rigging fine

Jill Treanor, 23 April 2015

Germany’s Deutsche Bank has been fined a record $2.5bn (£1.7bn) for rigging Libor, ordered to fire seven employees and accused of being obstructive towards regulators in their investigations into the global manipulation of the benchmark rate.

The penalties on Germany’s largest bank also involve a guilty plea to the Department of Justice (DoJ) in the US and a deferred prosecution agreement. The regulators released a cache of emails, electronic messages and phone calls showing the attempts to move the rate used to price £3.5tn of financial contracts. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank hit by record $2.5bn Libor-rigging fine”

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