It gets worse in Spain. In the run-up to the current crisis, banks sold retail customers 22 billion euros of high-yielding preferred shares. Bank losses deepened, the securities plunged in value and the retail customers saw their savings diminished, and in some cases, locked in an illiquid product. Now, angry Spaniards are finding an Read More
More than 50,000 Greeks marched on the nation’s parliament to protest austerity measures required by bailout agreements, according to Reuters: ”‘We can’t just sit by idly and do nothing while the troika and the government destroy our lives,’ said Dimitra Kontouli, a 49-year-old local government employee whose salary was cut to 1,100 euros a month from 1,600 euros previously.”
Spain is moving towards accepting European bailouts, even as protests in Madrid turned violent and politicians in the Catalonia region called for secession.
“It’s just amazing how Libor fixing can make you that much money or lose if opposite.” So said Tan Chi Min, a former Royal Bank of Scotland trader in a conversation with traders at other banks, in an affidavit reviewed by Bloomberg. “It’s a cartel now in London.” Tan is suing RBS in Singapore for wrongful dismissal after being fired for attempting to manipulate Libor. Read More
Lawsuits against financial institutions under investigation for manipulating interbank lending rates such as Libor continue to pile up, according to The Wall Street Journal. Plaintiffs holding bonds that pay some amount above the Libor rate have the best chances at legal victory, The Journal says. The legal liability facing banks may total as much as $176 Read More
Nasdaq may be planning to sweeten its compensation offer to entities that suffered losses due to technical problems at the exchange on the day of Facebook’s initial public offering, The New York Post reports, which would fit the pattern: Nasdaq makes an offer, the market makers—Citigroup, UBS, Citadel and Knight—talk tough, Nasdaq ups the Read More
Why he did it: PFGBest Founder Russell R. Wasendorf, who was arrested last week on allegations that his futures brokerage was missing more than $200 million in client segregated funds, wrote that he misappropriated funds to meet increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, according to The Wall Street Journal. (Sort of like the Stuyvesant High Seniors Read More
Conflict of interest? Royal Bank of Scotland is fighting a Canadian inquiry into the bank’s role in manipulating interbank lending, arguing that British law prevents the bank from turning over documents pertaining to the investigation. If RBS’ resistance is surprising, it’s because the bank has been majority-owned by the British government since the 2008 Read More
And so the Grexit continues to be nigh: George Soros may handicap Greece’s June 17 election in favor of the pro-bailout parties deemed more likely to keep the nation in Europe’s monetary union, but better-safe-than-sorry still applies. If you’re a Greek saver, that may mean stashing some euros under your mattress. If you’re Read More
It’s bad enough to have U.S. attorneys poking around your anti-money laundering unit, worse still when those pesky reporters get hold of the documents. That’s the spot HSBC finds itself in this morning, after Reuters put out a massive story on the state of affairs at the British lender’s U.S. bank.
The short-story: Reuters got hold of a draft letter from U.S. attorney William J. Ihlenfeld II to justice department officials alleging HSBC had created an anti-money laundering operation that was a “systemically flawed sham paper-product designed solely to make it appear that the Bank has complied.” Read More
Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of securing money stolen by Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, is accusing HSBC of continuing to deal with Madoff feeder funds despite the London bank’s significant suspicions about the fund. It is on those grounds that Mr. Picard is suing HSBC for $9 billion.
As was the case with Read More
