REPORT: Geithner Was Silent On Barclays LIBOR Fraud
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Officials at the New York Federal Reserve, including then-president Timothy Geithner, did not communicate in key meetings with U.S. regulators that U.K. bank Barclays had admitted to manipulating Libor, according to a report in Wednesday's Washington Post. The story, quoting two unidentified people with knowledge of the matter, said that regulators never heard an appeal from the New York Fed to investigate possible wrongdoing over Libor. Officials at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Justice Department worked largely without the Fed's help to build a case against Barclays according to the report. The bank ultimately paid $450 million to settle charges that it provided false submission to the Libor setting panel. Geithner will likely be asked about the issue when he testifies later this morning to the House Financial Services Committee. Geithner has said he sounded the alarm when a Barclays employee told the regional Fed bank that it was submitting false Libor reports.
Here's the Washington Post story...
Jul 25, 2012 at 1:26 PM
Reader Comments (11)
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/facing-congress-geithner-grilled-on-rate-rigging/
Tim Geithner Admits Banks Bailed Out With Rigged Libor, Costing Taxpayers Huge Amount
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-gongloff/timothy-geithner-libor_b_1701904.html
I did! Here is the text of my (2nd) message:
“I was just informed, that the House voted, 327-98, on H.R. 459, & AUDIT THE ‘FED’ passed! I was also just informed, that ‘Sen. HARRY REID is refusing to put Audit the Fed up for a vote in the Senate.’ And, to ‘Please contact his office today and tell him to support AUDIT THE ‘FED’ and allow for a Senate vote!’
327-98, Senator, is a CLEAR MAJORITY. THE PEOPLE have spoken. Question: Do you represent THE PEOPLE? I noticed, that in 1995, you spoke openly FOR an AUDIT OF THE ‘FED’ – of course, the need for such an audit has not changed since then – why has your stance (on this issue) changed? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn1u3yDjhN4 ”
CONTACT SEN. HARRY REID TODAY! LET’S FLOOD HIS EMAIL ON THIS ISSUE!
(Feel free to Copy and Paste the message above, if you wish)
http://www.reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Related News:
Audit the Fed Passes the House! 327(Y)-98(N)
http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/7788/blog/2012/07/25/audit-fed-passes-0
Harry Reid vows Federal Transparency Act will never be voted on in the Senate 7/25/12
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/115546-2012-07-25-harry-reid-vows-federal-transparency-act-will-never-be-voted.htm
Harry Reid’s ULTIMATE FLIP-FLOP Passionate Speech Pleading for an Audit of The Federal Reserve 1/23/1995
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn1u3yDjhN4
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/27/us-barclays-earnings-idUSBRE86Q06Q20120727
[snip]
Despite these latest blows, Barclays beat forecasts with a profit of more than 4 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) in the first six months of the year. The bank said its performance during July was ahead of last year and there has been no exodus of clients.
Barclays shares were up 4.8 percent to 161 pence by 05.59 a.m. EDT, outperforming a 0.2 percent fall by the European bank index .SX7P.
The bank said on Friday that Britain's financial regulator has started an investigation involving the bank and four current and former senior employees, including finance director Chris Lucas.
http://en.rian.ru/business/20120928/176270369.html
[snip]
Ever since the crash of Lehman Brothers four years ago prompted the U.S. government to rescue the country’s largest financial institutions with taxpayer money, U.S. authorities are hesitant to “do something that might make one of these banks fail,” said Stephen Bainbridge, a securities regulation expert at UCLA Law School.
http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20140209&id=17333983
LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays said it had launched an investigation after a newspaper reported that the personal details of 27,000 customers had been stolen and sold, raising the prospect of new fines for the bank.
Confidential information on customers' earnings and health as well as passport details had ended up for sale, The Mail on Sunday reported, citing data provided to it by a whistleblower.
Barclays said it had notified regulators and started an investigation, the initial findings of which suggested the files were linked to the Barclays Financial Planning business which closed in 2011.
"This appears to be criminal action and we will co-operate with the authorities on pursuing the perpetrator," the bank said in a statement on Sunday.
The data leak is a new blow for the British bank after a string of scandals for mis-selling payment protection insurance and manipulating benchmark interest rates, which have resulted in billions of pounds in fines and compensation payouts.
The bank could face new fines should it be found at fault over this data leak.
Britain's data privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), can impose fines of up to 500,000 pounds for serious breaches of the country's data protection rules, while Britain's financial watchdog, The Financial Conduct Authority, has the power to impose unlimited fines.
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No fall in Barclays bonuses
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26064949
I would expect Barclays in results on Tuesday to disclose it is paying more in bonuses to its investment bankers than the £1.3bn it paid for 2012 - and that it has allocated a higher proportion of investment banking revenues to the pay of its investment bankers than last year's 39%.
My sources there tell me that the board has become increasingly concerned that its huge investment bank is being damaged by defections to higher-paying US banks - and is therefore maintaining pay and increasing it for some, even though revenues have been under pressure.
The bank is increasingly concerned that it has become too easy for the giants of Wall Street to pick off its best people, by pointing to the looming imposition of the EU's cap on bonuses.
Which is why Barclays is finding ways to get round the bonus cap and feels the need to publicly make it clear that it still offers substantial rewards for investment banking stars.
None of which is designed to make it popular with millions of British people, whose living standards are not yet rising and who continue to feel sore about the widespread misconduct by bankers and their contribution to making most households poorer.
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Ex-Barclays CEO Diamond Hires Schamis as Founding Partner
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-28/ex-barclays-ceo-diamond-hires-schamis-as-founding-partner.html
Atlas Merchant Capital LLC, the investment firm started last year by former Barclays Plc (BARC) Chief Executive Officer Bob Diamond, hired David Schamis as a founding partner.
Schamis, a former managing director at buyout firm J.C. Flowers & Co., will oversee private-equity investing, according to a statement yesterday from New York-based Atlas. Schamis was also a director at MF Global Holdings Ltd., the bankrupt brokerage that was run by Jon Corzine.
https://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/14/news/mid-maine/bank-scandal-stirs...
WATERVILLE, Maine — Robert Diamond, the former Barclays chief, gave $6 million to finance a Colby College building that has become a focal point for student dissent over his role at the 199-year-old school.
Diamond, class of ’73, was forced out at Barclays after the London-based bank admitted to manipulating a key lending rate affecting $300 trillion in finance products worldwide. Since Colby trustees backed him as chairman in August, a group of students and local activists has rallied outside the Diamond Building to call for his removal.
“It’s not just what Bob Diamond stands for,” said Gordon Fischer, a Colby senior from Camden, who has helped set up protests, including one that attracted more than 30 people on Nov. 11. “It’s how the decision was made by the board to strongly affirm their support for him.”
The market crisis that led to the longest recession since World War II highlighted a cozy relationship between academia and Wall Street. College presidents such as Brown University’s Ruth Simmons served as paid bank directors while academics failed to reveal industry support for research backing deregulation. As campus protests focused on financiers, leaders including Harvard President Drew Faust urged graduates to resist the lure of banking and investment jobs.
Yet executives who’ve been tarnished by scandal are rarely forced to cut ties with schools and nonprofit organizations they’ve supported, said Stanley Katz, a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University. Usually a trustee caught up in such situations simply isn’t re-elected, Katz said.
“There’s a big gap between that and forcing a person off the board,” Katz said. “What you’re relying on is the common sense of the guy to throw himself overboard in the best interest of the organization. At some point you’re doing more harm than good.”
Richard Fuld, the former head of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, is an example. He quit as a trustee of Vermont’s Middlebury College after Lehman went bankrupt in September 2008, upending credit markets worldwide.
"Richard Fuld, the former head of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, is an example. He quit as a trustee of Vermont’s Middlebury College after Lehman went bankrupt in September 2008, upending credit markets worldwide."
Ever hear of Bill McKibben (350 dot org)?
Barclays bank scandal stirs up Colby College
https://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/14/news/mid-maine/bank-scandal-stirs...
WATERVILLE, Maine — Robert Diamond, the former Barclays chief, gave $6 million to finance a Colby College building that has become a focal point for student dissent over his role at the 199-year-old school.
Diamond, class of ’73, was forced out at Barclays after the London-based bank admitted to manipulating a key lending rate affecting $300 trillion in finance products worldwide. Since Colby trustees backed him as chairman in August, a group of students and local activists has rallied outside the Diamond Building to call for his removal.
“It’s not just what Bob Diamond stands for,” said Gordon Fischer, a Colby senior from Camden, who has helped set up protests, including one that attracted more than 30 people on Nov. 11. “It’s how the decision was made by the board to strongly affirm their support for him.”
The market crisis that led to the longest recession since World War II highlighted a cozy relationship between academia and Wall Street. College presidents such as Brown University’s Ruth Simmons served as paid bank directors while academics failed to reveal industry support for research backing deregulation. As campus protests focused on financiers, leaders including Harvard President Drew Faust urged graduates to resist the lure of banking and investment jobs.
Yet executives who’ve been tarnished by scandal are rarely forced to cut ties with schools and nonprofit organizations they’ve supported, said Stanley Katz, a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University. Usually a trustee caught up in such situations simply isn’t re-elected, Katz said.
“There’s a big gap between that and forcing a person off the board,” Katz said. “What you’re relying on is the common sense of the guy to throw himself overboard in the best interest of the organization. At some point you’re doing more harm than good.”
Richard Fuld, the former head of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, is an example. He quit as a trustee of Vermont’s Middlebury College after Lehman went bankrupt in September 2008, upending credit markets worldwide.
"Richard Fuld, the former head of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, is an example. He quit as a trustee of Vermont’s Middlebury College after Lehman went bankrupt in September 2008, upending credit markets worldwide."
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Speaking of where in the world is Dick Fuld…
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-12/where-is-dick-fuld-now-f…
Aug. 29, 2013: Dick Fuld in exile
“Hi, I’m Dick Fuld, the most hated man in America.” It was just after the crisis, and Fuld was making a rare social appearance at a party in the Sun Valley, Idaho, mansion of Jim Johnson, the former head of Fannie Mae. The self-mocking introduction, described by a guest, was Fuld’s armor—his way of broaching, and deflecting, the first thought that leaps to mind whenever someone hears his name: Dick Fuld was the chief executive officer who, on Sept. 15, 2008, led Lehman Brothers into the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, setting a torch to the global financial system.
The party was a reminder of Fuld’s old life, packed with familiar faces from the highest levels of business and government, including former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Fuld owns a $19 million compound in Sun Valley, but he couldn’t escape his new status as a pariah. One guest at the party recalls President Obama’s then-national security adviser, Tom Donilon, who owns a home nearby, showing up, spotting Fuld and Mozilo, turning white as a sheet, and slipping back out the door. (Johnson, Donilon, and Mozilo all declined to comment. Through a friend, Fuld said he wasn’t able to talk to reporters.)
Five years after the fall, Lehman Brothers no longer evokes the intense public anger it did in the weeks after the crash, when Fuld was hauled before Congress and made to answer for the firm’s demise. “If you haven’t discovered your role,” Republican Representative John Mica of Florida told him, “you’re the villain.” Most of the company’s top executives found lucrative jobs elsewhere on Wall Street. Many went to work for Barclays (BCS), which bought much of Lehman’s U.S. banking business out of bankruptcy. Lehman’s president, Bart McDade, and a top trader, Alex Kirk, founded investment firm River Birch Capital. George Walker, who ran Neuberger Berman, Lehman’s wealth management division, has continued to do so, thriving since the firm became independent. “I certainly don’t think there’s any Lehman hangover on the individuals themselves,” says Robert Wolf, the former chairman and CEO of UBS Americas (UBS).
Barclays Fined Record Amount For Channelling Enron, Manipulating California's Electricity Market
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-01/barclays-fined-record-amount-ch…
In the event the above link doesn't work, try this ;)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/01/us-barclays-ferc-manipulation-idUSBRE8A004X20121101
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-06/ex-barclays-carbon-chief-redsha...
Louis Redshaw, the former head of carbon trading at Barclays Plc (BARC), returned to the market amid a jump in permit prices since he left the bank in April.
Redshaw, 41, who resigned from Barclays in London after more than eight years at the company, is buying and selling European Union permits for his own account from his home in the southeast of the capital, he said by phone, declining to provide further details. Allowances climbed 33 percent this year, the best performance of 80 commodities tracked by Bloomberg. They rose to their highest level in more than a year today, trading at 6.74 euros ($9.17) a metric ton on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.
EU lawmakers are completing details of a plan to curb an unprecedented oversupply and boost prices, which fell to a record in April. Allowances may rise to as high as 15 euros by 2015, according to Patrick Hummel, an analyst at UBS AG.
“There’s no reason why the market shouldn’t double within the next 18 months,” said Redshaw, who also worked as a trader at Enron Corp. and Electricite de France SA. (EDF) “At 6 euros, it’s still cheap.”