Financial industry

UK bank made £500m out of hunger by speculating on food prices

Topics: 
Food industry, Financial industry
Rating: 
0

Anna Edwards – September 1, 2012

Barclays has been accused of profiting from world hunger by betting on food crises and helping to push prices up. Barclays Capital, the investment arm of the bank, has prompted fresh criticism after they reportedly made more than £500million by speculating on food staples while millions around the world face starvation and crippling food prices.

The World Development Movement said Barclays is estimated to make up to £529 million in 2010 and 2011 from speculating in food markets, making it the biggest UK player in the markets.

Treating food like stocks and shares is a recipe for disaster

Topics: 
Food industry, Financial industry
Rating: 
3

Allowing financiers to gamble with food commodities distorts the market and is a real threat to the world's poor

Heather Stewart – October 14, 2012

Droughts, storms, floods – after this year's washout of a summer, it is hardly a surprise that farmers are warning of rising food prices on supermarket shelves. The price of wheat is 16% higher than this time last year; corn costs are up 7%; and there is an increasingly fierce battle about how to make the best use of agricultural land.

But don't be fooled into thinking this is a simple tale of supply and demand – crops keeling over in the baking midwest sunshine and hungry mouths to feed thousands of miles away. The world market for food includes not just farmers and shoppers, but hundreds of millions of dollars of complex financial bets.

Deutsche Bank Whistleblower Goes to the SEC

Topics: 
Europe, Financial industry, Reprisals, Whistleblowers
Rating: 
2

December 5, 2012

Eric Ben-Artzi is talking. He’s talking to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). And he’s talking in the public square. Ben-Artzi is blowing the whistle on multi-billion dollar securities violations at Deutsche Bank, the Germany-based global investment bank.

“I never wanted or expected to be a whistleblower,” Ben-Artzi, a former quantitative risk analyst at Deutsche Bank, said. “I reported internally first and extensively, in accordance with bank policies and procedures. As the problem was not acknowledged or corrected, I felt compelled to inform the proper law enforcement authorities. Unfortunately, my family and I are paying a heavy price for doing the right thing.”

How Alberta became a wild west for small investors

Topics: 
Alberta, Financial industry, Regulatory oversight
Rating: 
3
The following are selected extracts

Nearly $2 billion lost. As many as 20 troubled or bankrupt companies. Tamsin McMahon looks at how Alberta regulators failed to guard against the biggest losses

Tamsin Mcmahon with Anthony A. Davis –December 2, 2012

For “Maria,” the gnawing doubt began shortly after she signed papers handing over her life savings to a real estate developer in Alberta. She attended a seminar in Ottawa in 2009 touting the benefits of investing in real estate, which promised better returns than the tumultuous stock market.

Among the investments on offer was a company called CBI Group, run by Red Deer brothers Ron and Travis Cadman, which promised a chance to invest in an array of projects they were developing around Alberta—a luxury vacation property in the resort community of Sylvan Lake, a condo project in Red Deer that listed a movie theatre and a resident chef among its amenities—as well as a chance to invest in foreclosed properties in Arizona.

Manitoba whistleblower assigned to “non-job” after warning of government fraud

Topics: 
Government ethics, Reprisals, White-collar crime, Financial industry, Manitoba
Rating: 
4

Tristin Hopper – December 18, 2012

Newly assigned to a “non-job” and with four years to retirement, Manitoba bureaucrat Jack Dalgliesh whiled away the hours by reading the classics; 156 of them to be exact.

“I may have worked at most 10 days a year for roughly $93,000 or $94,000 a year,” the now-retired Mr. Dalgliesh wrote in a message released Tuesday by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Deutsche books hid $12bn losses, say staff

Topics: 
Europe, Financial industry, Financial crisis, Corruption
Rating: 
2
The following are selected extracts

Tom Braithwaite, Kara Scannell and Michael Mackenzie – December 5, 2012

Deutsche Bank failed to recognise up to $12bn of paper losses during the financial crisis, helping the bank avoid a government bail-out, three former bank employees have alleged in complaints to US regulators.

The three complaints, made to regulators including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, claim that Deutsche misvalued a giant position in derivatives structures known as leveraged super senior trades, according to people familiar with the complaints.

US bank settles suit; whistleblower gets $1.1 million

Topics: 
USA, Financial industry, Corruption, Qui tam or False Claims Act
Rating: 
2

November 8, 2012

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK) has reached a settlement over accusations it charged hidden mark-ups on currency transactions to Virginia's employee pension fund, in a deal that will include a $1.1 million payment to the bank insider who brought the practice to light, according to a source familiar with the matter.

As part of the agreement, Virginia will permanently drop its lawsuit against Bank of New York, and the bank will offer some compromises on fees going forward, according to sources familiar with the details who spoke on condition of anonymity. A proposed order either already has or is about to be filed with the court seeking permanent dismissal of the case, one of the sources said.

Canada’s missing $1,000 bills: in the hands of criminal elites

Topics: 
Organized crime, Financial industry, Drug trafficking
Rating: 
3
The following are selected extracts

Adrian Humphreys – Nov 15, 2012

More than 10 years after the $1,000 bill disappeared from circulation 946,043 of them are still out there, somewhere. The whereabouts of almost $1-billion worth of the banknotes is a mystery rekindled this month at Quebec’s corruption probe when a witness spoke of a safe over-stuffed with cash, including $1,000 notes, inside a political office.

Retired on May 12, 2000, for being mostly used in criminal transactions, any $1,000 note deposited at a bank is destroyed, although the bills — nicknamed “pinkies” by gangsters because of the pinkish-purple ink — remain legal tender.

HSBC investigated by offshore banking regulators

Topics: 
UK, Corruption, Financial industry
Rating: 
3

Simon Bowers – November 9, 2012

Financial regulators in the channel island Jersey have launched an inquiry into HSBC, one of the biggest banks on the island, following a leak of the names of thousands of bank account holders said to include individuals with a history of links to drug and gun crime.

The move follows confirmation that UK tax authorities had also begun eagerly working through the list looking for possible evidence of discrepancies in British offshore depositors' tax affairs.

UK whistleblower: £300bn wholesale gas market manipulated by power companies

Topics: 
UK, Financial industry, Power industry, Corruption
Rating: 
2

Terry Macalister – November 13, 2012

The City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, is investigating claims by a whistleblower that Britain's £300bn wholesale gas market has been "regularly" manipulated by some of the big power companies, exploiting weaknesses that echo the recent Libor scandal.

Separately, the energy regulator Ofgem has been warned by a company responsible for setting so-called benchmark prices, ICIS Heren, that it had seen evidence of suspect trading on 28 September, a key date as it marks the end of the gas financial year and can have an important influence on future prices.

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