UBS Belgium CEO Charged In Multibillion-Euro Tax Probe; Credit Suisse becomes the first bank in more than a decade - General

Fred 2014.06.14 08:58 #191

I won't say the market is controlled by someone but the majority of the forex market is made of central banks and that's saying something

thenews 2014.06.20 10:37 #192

UBS Belgium CEO Charged in Multibillion-Euro Tax Probe

Marcel Bruehwiler, chief executive officer of UBS AG’s (UBSN) Belgium unit, was charged in Brussels as part of a probe into a multibillion-euro tax fraud, accelerating the latest tax-evasion inquiry facing the Swiss bank.

Bruehwiler was charged with criminal organization, money laundering, illegal practice of the profession of financial intermediary and serious organized fiscal fraud, Brussels prosecutors said in a statement yesterday. They said Bruehwiler, who was released after several hours of questioning, denied the charges. UBS said earlier that it “does not tolerate” activities aimed at tax evasion.

“There will be a lot of pressure on the Belgian judicial and political system to take strong action against the bank” in the wake of international cases from the U.S. to France, Howard Liebman, a tax partner at law firm Jones Day in Brussels, said in a phone interview. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose customers in the short term.”

A U.S.-led push resulted last month in Switzerland’s Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) becoming the first bank in more than a decade to admit to a crime in a U.S. courtroom. The lender paid $2.6 billion in fines for helping Americans cheat on their taxes. UBS avoided U.S. prosecution in 2009 by admitting it aided tax evasion, paying $780 million and handing over data on 250 accounts. It later disclosed information on about 4,450 more.

‘Customer Concern’

Paris prosecutors are also investigating allegations UBS’s French unit helped clients hide their wealth in Swiss accounts. The country’s banking regulators fined Zurich-based UBS 10 million euros ($13.6 million) last year for deficient controls against tax fraud and illegal sales practices. Tax investigators searched its offices in Paris, Lyon and Strasbourg in 2012.

The Belgian case deals with tax-dodging activities started a decade ago, in which UBS employees allegedly targeted rich Belgian clients, according to the Brussels authorities. Police searched Bruehwiler’s home and that of a client, as well as the bank’s offices, officials said.

Bankers encouraged clients to open undeclared accounts in Switzerland, according to a report last month in the magazine M... Belgique, which didn’t say where it got the information. UBS Belgium helped organize the transfer of large amounts of client money to Switzerland, the magazine said.

‘Several Billions’

Information pointing to “serious organized fiscal fraud” was “obtained via very specific accusations of compliance officers who have either left the bank, or been laid off and could no longer stand the modus operandi of UBS,” Brussels prosecutors said. The tax evasion is “estimated at several billion euros.”

Prosecutors said they will continue to analyze the evidence gathered during the searches and further interrogation sessions will follow.

“We conduct our business in full compliance with applicable law and regulations,” Yves Kaufmann, a spokesman for UBS, said in a phone interview yesterday before the decision to charge Bruehwiler. “UBS does not tolerate any activities intended to help its clients circumvent their tax obligations. We fully collaborate with the Belgian authorities,” he said. Kaufmann declined to comment further today.

UBS Belgium’s office in Brussels couldn’t provide contact details for Bruehwiler’s representatives or lawyer.

source

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thenews 2014.06.22 12:38 #193

House Committee ordered to court in insider probe

A powerful U.S. House of Representatives committee was ordered on Friday to appear before a judge next month to explain why it should not be required to turn over documents in an insider-trading probe.

U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan set a July 1 hearing for the Ways and Means Committee to appear. He also required a committee staffer, Brian Sutter, to appear. He said the committee must show why it should not be ordered to produce documents demanded by the Securities and Exchange Commission in May.

In court papers, the SEC said its probe relates to whether secrets were passed to certain members of the public surrounding an April 2013 announcement by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about a Medicare program.

Sutter, the health subcommittee's staff director, disclosed on May 9 to House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, that he had received a subpoena from the SEC for documents and testimony along with a grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to the congressional record of that day.

The SEC said in its court papers that the committee and Sutter had refused to comply with the subpoenas. It said they had asserted "numerous objections, arguing, among other things, that the subpoenas are 'repugnant to public policy;' that they are vague and overbroad" and that the speech or debate clause of the Constitution entitled them to avoid producing the documents or testimony.

Kerry W. Kircher, general counsel for the House of Representatives, said in an email to The Associated Press that the SEC subpoenas "run seriously afoul of the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause." Kircher said House lawyers are aware the federal judge wants a response by next Thursday and will respond on that ground, among others.

The SEC noted that a public rate announcement about the Medicare Advantage program that was far more favorable to certain health care insurers than anticipated was made 20 minutes after the market closed on April 1, 2013. But, it said, an analyst at dealer-broker Height Securities LLC issued a flash report about 20 minutes before the markets closed urging dozens of clients, including prominent investment funds, to buy stocks that would benefit from a rate increase close to what was announced.

The SEC said the prices and trading volumes of affected stocks, including Louisville, Kentucky-based health care company Humana Inc., increased dramatically within minutes. It said the Height analyst distributed the flash report about half an hour after receiving an email from a lobbyist firm and attorney forecasting the rate improvement.

An SEC probe began April 9, 2013, to determine the source of information sent from the lobbyist to Height and the circumstances of the transmittal and whether any conduct constituted insider trading, the SEC said.

A message seeking comment from Height, which has offices in New York and Washington, D.C., was not immediately returned Friday.

The SEC said information it had obtained indicates Sutter spoke several times in March 2013 to a colleague at the lobbyist firm that sent the email to the Height analyst and communicated with at least two people at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the week before the rate announcement.

The SEC said an FBI agent and an investigator from the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services interviewed Sutter several weeks after the rate announcement and discussed with him his communications with the lobbying firm.

The agency said Sutter did not recall speaking to the lobbying firm about the rate announcement, but a House attorney sent the FBI and the HHS investigator a letter saying some of the information provided during the voluntary interview was incomplete and, on at least one key issue, inaccurate.

The SEC said the commission had obtained other information that indicated Sutter may have been a source of the lobbying firm's non-public information.

source

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techmac 2014.06.23 07:21 #194

bingofx:
Wikipedia states that it is free of any regulation. Doing simple analysis on it's operation it is clearly evident that there is no oversight body controlling the market.

Wikipedia is written by volunteers that do not necessarily write what the facts are. That is not a scientific publication - but a informative publication

I or you can go there and write something there and then it will become a "fact"

Try reading "Flash boys" from Michael Lewis (that is actual now) and see how "not controlled" forex market is

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thenews 2014.06.23 19:06 #195

BNP Paribas likely to pay up to $9 billion as part of settlement with US authorities

French bank BNP ParibasBSE -0.92 % SA is likely to pay $8 billion to $9 billion as part of a potential settlement with US authorities over violations of sanctions, according to a person familiar with the matter.

US authorities are investigating whether BNP evaded US sanctions relating primarily to Sudan between 2002 and 2009, and whether it stripped out identifying information from wire transfers so they could pass through the US financial system without raising red flags, sources h ..

The size of the potential fine has been a source of tension between France and the United States, with French President Francois Hollande warning against a "disproportionate" penalty that might damage France's biggest listed bank.

A big penalty could not only hit BNP's capital position and dividend, but could weaken its attempts to expand in North America as it strives to raise revenue and profits outside its traditional European markets.

The US investigation has turned up books and records violations in transactions involving Sudan, Iran and Cuba, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

A BNP spokeswoman declined to comment.

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin on Monday did not comment on a possible deal, but repeated the French position that any penalty should be fair and proportionate.

"The French state, the government ... has played its role in telling the Americans: 'Be careful - by all means punish the past but don't punish the future'," he told France Info radio.

Earlier in the month, Reuters reported that US authorities negotiating with BNP at one point suggested a penalty as high as $16 billion, although that was viewed as a negotiating tactic in response to an offer from BNP of about $1 billion.

BNP, the biggest collector of investment-banking fees in France according to data from Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting, has been negotiating on an almost daily basis with US authorities for weeks.

Is forex market controlled by someone? - page 20