Deloitte talks settlement in Innoconcepts 2010 bankruptcy

DutchNews.nl, March 13, 2015

Accountants group Deloitte is embroiled in a new book-keeping scandal, this time in connection with the bankruptcy of Innoconcepts in 2010, the NRC says on Friday. 

Curator Louis Deterink says Deloitte ‘wrongly’ approved two sets of annual accounts for the company which were worth €400m on the Amsterdam stock exchange in 2007. 

Deterink, considered one of the Netherlands most expert bankruptcy specialists, says in his report that Innoconcepts went bankrupt due to its ‘vague’ and ‘conflict of interest-scented’ interests in China. The company’s alliance partners in China effectively emptied the company but Deloitte failed to take any action on this, the NRC says. 

The 10 Chinese partner companies built up debts running into millions of euros with Innoconcepts but this was not included in the annual report. The partner firms also refused to hand over their annual reports and said this was considered normal in China, Deterink’s report says. 

According to the Financieele Dagblad, there were also conflicts of interest involving both management and supervisory board members. Innoconcepts was set up to exploit inventions and support innovative R&D. 

Settlement 

Deloitte said in a statement it was taking the report ‘extremely seriously’ and would look ‘critically at its own role’. 

Deterink and Deloitte are in talks about a settlement and Deterink considers Deloitte liable for a ‘substantial part’ of the €63m inventory shortage. 

Deloitte was also the main accountant for merchant bank Van der Hoop, which went bankrupt in 2005 and supermarket group Ahold at the time of the book-keeping fraud which came to light in 2003, the NRC says.

ABN Amro fires six at Dubai office for irregularities

DutchNews.nl, March 11, 2015

Dutch state-owned bank ABN Amro fired six employees at its Dubai private banking desk after an internal probe showed they were involved in serious irregularities, the Financieele Dagblad says on Wednesday. 

The bankers had failed to comply with internal codes of conduct by enabling clients to use their personal accounts for illicit business transactions. The FD said this enabled the clients to use private banking accounts to carry out transactions which should have fallen under a much stricter compliance regime.

‘We offer private banking, and feel that using our services this way is improper,’ a spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal. ‘We maintain a high standard world-wide for client acceptance.’ 

ABN Amro has a workforce of around 100 in Dubai. The office trades in commodities such as oil and in diamonds as well as offering private banking services to wealthy clients. 

The FD says the bank kept the irregularities and the redundancies quiet and described the sudden departure of the responsible chief executive officer as ‘retirement’.

Related Articles:

UBS Whistle-Blower Says Bank Has ‘Global’ Issue With Tax Evaders

Coutts' Swiss operation faces German investigation over tax evasion claims
Swiss account secret of HSBC chief Stuart Gulliver revealed

Stuart Gulliver in Hong Kong in 2012: leaked files show that the
HSBC chief executive was a client of the bank’s Swiss subsidiary at
the centre of the scandal. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy,Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) -(Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Dutch justice minister, deputy resign over drugs dealer cash deal

DutchNews.nl, March 9, 2015

Opstelten and Teeven during their press conferences. Photos: Nos

Hardline justice minister Ivo Opstelten and his deputy Fred Teeven have resigned following revelations about a 4.7 million guilder payment to a convicted drugs baron in 2001. 

Speaking at a news conference on Monday evening, Opstelten said further investigation by his officials had led to the discovery of‘digital confirmation’ that showed Cees H had been paid 4.7 million guilders, not two million guilders as he had consistently told parliament. 

‘There has been a lack of certainty about the facts surrounding that settlement and I have concluded that I must now resign,’ Opstelten said in a short statement 

Teeven said he did his credibility had been damaged by the situation and that he could no longer carry on in the job without Opstelten. Nevertheless ‘there was nothing wrong with the deal,’ Teeven said. ‘It was done for folk and fatherland.’ 

Neither minister would answer reporters’ questions and left the room after making their statements. 

Tax office 

Earlier on Monday, the Telegraaf reported that the receipt for the payment had been found, proving that Teeven authorised the return of 4.7 million guilders to a convicted drugs dealer, without the knowledge of his superior or the tax office. Teeven was then chief public prosecutor. 

The Telegraaf says many questions remain to be answered about why Cees H was handled with kid gloves and why the justice ministry agreed to such a lucrative deal. 

The deal, which was kept secret from the tax authorities, hit the headlines in March 2014 when H’s lawyer at the time said his client had been paid back five million guilders. The public prosecution department had sequestered around five million guilders in assets from drugs lord H – including property and jewellery. 

However, the department was unable to prove the assets had been obtained illegally and so most of the money was returned to H. 

Teeven agreed to the deal in ‘complete confidentiality’ so that ‘national and/or international tax services and fiscal authorities’ were not informed, television current affairs show Nieuwsuur said earlier this month.

The Netherlands' justice minister, Ivo Opstelten, arrives for a 

press conference about his resignation in The Hague. Photograph: 

Evert-Jan Daniels/EPA

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MPs want independent inquiry into drug baron payment - New

Prime minister makes statement about justice ministry resignations
Netherlands' justice minister resigns in drug money scandal
Opstelten and Teeven bow out: what the papers say
Justice ministers under fire over drugs lord payment

UN calls on Holland to feed and house failed asylum seekers

Former justice top dog should face probe for child rape: court

D66 devises plan to regulate Dutch marijuana production

35 mayors call for regulated marijuana production; minister Opstelten says no

-------------------------------------------------------------

Influential US senator 'faces corruption charges'

Fallen Virginia governor Robert McDonnell guilty of corruption
Congressman Michael Grimm Quits After Guilty Plea On Taxes

Greek ex-finance minister probed for hiding income

Top Brazilian politicians to be investigated in Petrobras graft scandal

-------------------------------------------------------------

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

The Unthinkable… Politics, A Review

Humans will begin to search for integrity and fairness and it's going to happen in the places you never expect. I said this last week, so this is a review. There'll come a time when you will demand this of your politics - fairness and integrity. So when the candidates start calling each other names, you will turn your back on them and they won't get any votes. They're going to get the point real fast, don't you think? How about that?

Let me give you another potential. This country that I sit in right now [USA] will set the mold for that particular attribute. I have no clock. Watch for the youngsters to set this in motion, and they will, for they are the voters of tomorrow and they do not want the energy of today. To some of them, it's so abominable they won't even register to vote in this energy. You're going to see this soon. That was number five.. ..."

Greek ex-finance minister probed for hiding income

Yahoo – AFP, 7 March 2015

Greece's ex-finance minister Gikas Hardouvelis at the European Council in
Brussels, on January 26, 2015 (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

Athens (AFP) - Ex-Greek finance minister Gikas Hardouvelis is being investigated for alleged failure to comply with his tax obligations, a Greek newspaper reported Saturday.

According to the weekly Real News, the deposits in Hardouvelis' bank accounts in 2011 did not match the incomes he had declared that year. Also, in 2012 he was suspected of sending money to banks abroad that was not accounted in his declaration of assets.

The inquiry was launched by anti-corruption minister and outgoing head of the independent money laundering authority, Panagiotis Nikoloudis,on January 20.

Nikoloudis confirmed to AFP on Saturday that he had opened a probe, emphasising that he had done so before becoming a minister in the new Syriza government.

"Hardouvelis has sent money abroad in a really curious way", he said.

Hardouvelis was briefly finance minister in the government of conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras, which was brought down this January by the populist Syriza party, campaigning to roll back painful austerity reforms imposed by Greece's EU creditors.

According to the Real News report, which was due to be published Sunday, Nikoloudis had sent an urgent classified demand to the Greek parliament, just five days before the general election, for an audit of Hardouvelis' tax declaration.

Hardouvelis issued a statement on Saturday, insisting that he had paid all taxes and that any foreign bank accounts he has were opened only because he had also worked abroad. Funds were only sent to those accounts when he was not a minister.

"I'm taxed for the sums of money the newspaper is referring to. The money is the result of many years of work -- mine and my wife's. My tax reports confirm that", said Hardouvelis.

Syriza issued a statement Saturday attacking Hardouvelis' alleged behaviour at the height of the Greek debt crisis.

"While Mr Hardouvelis was sending e-mails to the troika of creditors agreeing with new measures that would have burdened people even more, he was not revealing his income and he was sending his money abroad," Syriza said.

Related Articles:

Influential US senator Robert Menendez 'faces corruption charges' 

Fallen Virginia governor Robert McDonnell guilty of corruption
Congressman Michael Grimm Quits After Guilty Plea On Taxes

Top Brazilian politicians to be investigated in Petrobras graft scandal

Influential US senator 'faces corruption charges'

Robert Menendez, the senior senator from New Jersey, will face corruption allegations according to reports. The senator is alleged to have used his position to help the businesses of a friend.

Deutsche Welle, 7 Mar 2015

The US Justice Department is preparing criminal corruption charges against Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, American media reported on Friday. Citing anonymous sources briefed on the case, the report reveals that the charges center on allegations that Menendez used his office to promote the business interests of a donor in exchange for gifts.

Responding to the allegations reported by CNN, Senator Menendez's office denied any wrongdoing: "As we have said before, we believe all of the senator's actions have been appropriate and lawful," read the statement from Tricia Enright, Menendez's communications director.

In March 2013, when Menendez was the influential head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he is still the top Democrat today, The Washington Post reported he was under investigation by a Miami grand jury.

According to CNN, the corruption charges are related to an investigation involving a Florida doctor who is a close friend of Menendez and who has donated large sums of money to the senator's campaigns. Salomon Melgen, a prominent ophthalmologist, is reported to have businesses in the Dominican Republic, and Menendez is alleged to have intervened on his behalf from his congressional office.

Tricia Enright countered the accusation by saying Melgen was one of the senator's "closest friends for decades" and that "many false allegations have been made about this manner - allegations that were ultimately publicly discredited." Robert McDonnell

es/gsw (AFP, Reuters)

Related Articles:

Fallen Virginia governor Robert McDonnell guilty of corruption
Congressman Michael Grimm Quits After Guilty Plea On Taxes

Top Brazilian politicians to be investigated in Petrobras graft scandal

Top Brazilian politicians to be investigated in Petrobras graft scandal

Brazil's top court has given the green light for an inquiry into whether dozens of top lawmakers received kickbacks from state-controlled oil company Petrobras. The politicians were previously immune from scrunity.

Deutsche Welle, 7 Mar 2015

Brazil's Supreme Court will investigate the speakers of both houses of Congress and more than two dozen other politicians in connection with a multibillion-dollar kickback scheme from state-controlled oil giant Petrobras.

A court official said on Friday that 54 people were under investigation, including senators and congressmen, all but one from the ruling coalition of President Dilma Rousseff, who was narrowly re-elected last year and is struggling to rehabilitate a flagging economy.

Rousseff allies implicated

The Petrobras kickback scheme is believed to have stretched back for decades. The firm allegedly paid kickbacks amounting to $3.8 billion (3.4 billion euros) for overpriced contracts. The politicians involved in the probe include the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, and the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, both of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), the main coalition ally of Rousseff's Workers' Party (PT).

Two former members of Rousseff's cabinet are also implicated, Senator Gleisi Hoffmann, who was chief of staff during the first Rousseff administration, and former energy minister Edison Lobao. The incident has undermined support for Rousseff, who was chairman of the board at Petrobras from 2003 to 2010, when the kickback scheme was allegedly still operating.

The lawmakers held immunity in the graft investigation until now, as elected politicians can only be tried by the highest court. The move follows a call from Brazil's Attorney General, Rodrigo Janot, on Tuesday for the Supreme Court to allow the politicians' activities to be scrutinized.

es/gsw (AP, Reuters)

Role of Ferguson police chief and mayor must be examined

The Justice Department’s scathing Ferguson report shows that the government is paying attention, Harvard law scholar Charles Ogletree told DW. He says Ferguson is not an isolated case and suggests what to do about it.

Deutsche Welle, 5 March 2015

Charles Ogletree is a law professor at Harvard University and the founder and director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice. Among his students at Harvard were both Barack and Michelle Obama.

DW: Seven months after the shooting of Michael Brown, the US Justice Department released a report detailing racial bias in the Ferguson police department. What is the most important thing you have learned from that report?

Charles Ogletree: The most important thing is that the Justice Department is paying attention and realizes that there is a problem. The second thing is that I was very surprised when I learned after the death of Michael Brown that even though African-Americans were in the majority in the community in Ferguson, they weren't when it came to the police force, the city council or when it came to getting involved in the community. That was a shocking piece of evidence for me to find. Since then I have been saying that Ferguson has to be a classic 21st century city that is going to turn around and where people are going to get involved. I think that is going to make a big difference in Ferguson and St. Louis and other parts of Missouri as well.

There appear to be many incidents detailed in the report that seem to violate the US Constitution, but apparently the Justice Department does not think it can file a civil rights suit. Do you agree with that assessment?

Charles Ogletree

I do agree with that. And I am glad that Eric Holder before he leaves is moving to think about that. This report talks about the disparity in Ferguson in particular as it applies to people of African-American descent.

And that tells me that you have to change things and make sure that people are going to school, make sure they are not being arrested for bogus civil matters by the police who use that as a way to make money, make sure that they have a responsibility to vote.

Only 1 out of 5 people in Ferguson vote. And that is really against the trend, particularly when President Obama, my former student and a mentee of mine, was running in 2008 and 2012 we saw enormous numbers of African-Americans come out to vote because there was a black candidate that they liked. But it didn't happen in significant numbers in Ferguson. So there is a lot of change that needs to happen.

I know this is a little controversial, but I think there needs to be an examination of the mayor and the police chief to decide whether they are the right people to lead Ferguson forward. They have spoken here and we have had people listen to them. We had people protest the fact that we even invited them. But I think this means that this city should be one of the top cities in America in the 21st century. That is what I hope will happen with these changes in the process of how people get involved in politics and in the survival of the folks in Ferguson.

If you agree that the Justice Department can't bring a civil rights suit, do you think the Justice Department should file a criminal suit?

That's the harder one. They are limited in what they can do criminally. They tried to do something in the Rodney King case [beaten by Los Angeles police in 1991, ed.] here in the United States. They are trying to be effective in one way or another. I think it is very hard because all they can focus on is civil rights violations – and I think there are civil rights violations – but it's very hard to prove them. I would be very surprised if the Department of Justice brought a suit that could stick and that would have some impact on what's happening in Ferguson. I don't think that they can. I doubt that they will.

A striking detail in the report is the fact that traffic fines were the second-biggest source of income for the city of Ferguson and that city officials urged law enforcement to drum up even more revenue that way. What does that tell you?

It tells me that race matters and it matters in the wrong direction that people are being falsely arrested in order to get money from the people. And it also reinforces that folks don't feel that they don't have a real responsibility to engage in running for office, in being elected for office and voting for candidates and holding jobs that will make their families more successful. All these things stem from the fact what African-Americans see in Ferguson: that they are treated differently and treated with less respect and dignity by the police force. That's why, one, African-American people need to stand up and be strong and, two, the people of Ferguson need to have leaders who represent them in a fair and conscientious way and not simply look at their race and ignore their rights.

Is Ferguson an extreme and isolated case or do you think other communities have similar problems?

I have to say it is not isolated even tough it is extreme. If you look at what's happening in Chicago and the problems that city has had. If you even look at what's happening in parts of Boston - Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury – you see the distinction of African-Americans being arrested, jailed, dropping out of school, not working. I think that becomes a problem. It's a national problem in so many communities. I don't want to cite all the different cities, but if you go to Newark, New Jersey, if you go to parts of Harlem, New York, if you go to Cleveland, if you go to Illinois in many states you see that problem. It's not a Southern problem, it is a national problem that is affecting communities around the United States. I hope that Ferguson will be an example of what other communities can do as well if they move in the right direction.

If you think the Justice Department can't do anything legally, what concretely can be changed in Ferguson?

I think it is going to be adults educating their children that things can make a difference. I think back as a kid whose parents – my mother was from Arkansas, my father was from Alabama – and they came to California and I was born in 1952. And they had a sense that there was segregation and discrimination and there was a whole list of laws that made it impossible for them to succeed, but they wanted to make sure that there son, their first child, me, would finish high school. And then, because I did well in high school it was not a surprise that I was the very first in my family to finish high school and then go and finish college - and then go to law school. And that is what we have to do.

My son and my daughter, due to my wife who has been exceptional and made sure that they finish high school, made sure that they went to college and finished college and made sure that they have great jobs now. So it has to be a transformative experience that means that you are lifting up the generations behind you and then as you do that you are going to make sure that the generations behind you are lifting up the generations that are behind them as well. That's what we are trying to do and that is going to make a big difference. 

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Obama administration announces ban on racial profiling

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Greece seeks to plug its 'Bermuda Triangle' of lost taxes

Yahoo – AFP, Sophie Makris, 5 March 2015

Handout photo taken by the Hellenic Coast Guard on February 20, 2015 

shows a seized boat which was transporting large quantities of illicit cigarettes,

 in the western Greek port of Igoumenitsa (AFP Photo)

Athens (AFP) - It could be a scene from a thriller: a ghost ship abandoned in the crystal-clear bay of a Greek island, its hold crammed with millions of illegal cigarettes, the crew nowhere to be seen.

And no one knows where the freighter Amaranthus or its cargo were bound for when it beached on the island of Zanthe off the Ionian coast of western Greece in December.

But such discoveries are now almost routine for police as cigarette and petrol smuggling has become big business in crisis-hit Greece.

Every country in Europe has a problem with cigarette smuggling but in Greece -- which has the highest proportion of smokers of any developed country -- it has mushroomed since the economy sank into crisis.

A security official, who asked not to be named, told AFP corruption and a lack of resources had caused "major failings in the Greek Customs system" with few major seizures or investigations into smuggling rings.

Yet it is by cracking down on this multi-billion euro business, and the even more lucrative trade in petrol smuggling, that the new left-wing government hopes to find some of the money it needs to pay off Greece's gigantic debts.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has made stamping out fuel and cigarette fraud one of his priority reforms, with the state losing an estimated 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) a year in petrol tax alone, and between 500 and 600 million euros in lost revenue on tobacco.

Cigarettes and taxes

According to the market research company Nielsen, which used official Greek data, more than one cigarette in five smoked in Greece last year was smuggled, compared with only three percent in 2009 when the crisis that has devastated the Greek economy first struck.

But with the price of cigarettes rocketing, and cash-strapped governments raising taxes on them five times in as many years, researcher Ioannis Michaletos of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses said "the only efficient way of countering smuggling was to cut the tax on cigarettes".

This is not, however, what the government desperate to fill the state's empty coffers want to hear, and it seems determined instead to tighten controls and fully implement European rules on the traceability of cigarettes.

Michaletos is sceptical any such crackdown would work "given that European states better equipped than Greece have not had much success."

Even if the number of seizures is now increasing -- up by a half in the first part of 2014 -- it is another thing to track down those running this tentacular trade, he said, with counterfeit cigarettes coming not only from China but also from Greece's own substantial tobacco crop.

Handout photo taken by the Hellenic Coast Guard on February 5, 2015 shows

 seized cartons of illicit cigarettes at a Coast Guard warehouse in the port of 

Heraklion on the island of Crete (AFP Photo)

In addition, a separate huge VAT fraud involves cigarettes made in Europe for export being sold at home on the black market.

Petrol scams

But the loss to the Greek treasury is even more serious when it comes to petrol taxes. One fifth of the petrol used in Greek cars has been adulterated in one way or another, an industrial research centre found in 2012, mostly with petrol for boats which is taxed at a much lower rate.

Another major scam involves petrol distributors selling into neighbouring countries such as Bulgaria, Macedonia or Turkey but holding back some or all of their petrol to sell on the side at home, Giorgos Asmatoglou, president of the Greek petrol station owners' association, told AFP.

He claimed that successive governments had promised to put end to the practice, but that with hard-left Syriza party in power there seemed to be a "new will" to tackle it, particularly as a new deputy budget minister, economist Dimitris Mardas, had long studied the fraud.

Asmatoglou said using GPS to control the chain of distribution -- a measure that has been gathering dust for years -- could "change everything", ending much of the fraud at a stroke.

Yellen Seeks to Avert ‘Capture’ by Banks

Jakarta Globe, Bloomberg, Ian Katz, Mar 04, 2015

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen holds a news conference
at the Federal Reserve in Washington. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, countering criticism from members of Congress, said the central bank was trying to avoid being too cozy with the Wall Street firms it supervises and wants to ensure that regulators aren’t afraid to confront the financial industry.

“The risk of regulatory capture is something the Federal Reserve takes very seriously and works very hard to prevent,” Yellen said in remarks prepared for a speech in New York on Tuesday night.

“It is important that anyone serving the Fed feel safe speaking up when they have concerns about bias toward industry, and that those concerns be addressed.”

The Fed has been criticized by Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who say it’s deferential to large banks.

The issue was the subject of a Senate hearing in November following allegations by Carmen Segarra, a former examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who said her colleagues had been too soft on Goldman Sachs.

At the hearing, Warren told New York Fed President William C. Dudley that he needs to fix a “cultural problem” or “we need to get someone who will.”

The Fed has also come under fire from Republicans, including Richard Shelby of Alabama, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who called for more Fed transparency and greater congressional oversight at a hearing Tuesday.

Yellen, in her speech to the Citizens Budget Commission, also took aim at ethical lapses at large banks supervised by the Fed.

Follow the law

“We expect the firms we oversee to follow the law and to operate in an ethical manner,” she said.

“Too often in recent years, bankers at large institutions have not done so, sometimes brazenly.”

Such incidents “raise legitimate questions of whether there may be pervasive shortcomings in the values of large financial firms that might undermine their safety and soundness,” she said.

Global regulators, including the Fed, are trying to tighten oversight of financial benchmarks that are used to price everything from student loans to mortgages, oil and currencies.

The world’s largest banks have paid billions of dollars to settle allegations of rigging Libor and other interest rates. Six firms, including Citigroup and UBS, paid $4.3 billion in November to settle probes into the manipulation of foreign-exchange rates.

Forest versus trees

Yellen spoke broadly about efforts to ensure financial stability, saying the Fed is focusing more on the “forest” of the financial system rather than the “trees” of individual banks.

“We cannot eliminate the possibility of another crisis, but we can make a crisis less likely and less damaging by limiting excessive risk-taking by firms we oversee and by helping ensure that the most systemically important firms are better prepared to weather a crisis,” she said.

The Fed this week will announce the first results of this year’s so-called stress tests of the biggest banks, which are intended to see if they can maintain adequate capital cushions and keep lending in a hypothetical crisis scenario.

“In the decades of relative financial stability leading up to the crisis, it is fair to say that the Fed focused too much on individual firms and not enough on their role in the financial system and the implications of those firms’ operations for financial stability,” Yellen said.

Yellen said the financial system has become safer since the crisis.

The “high-quality liquid assets” of the largest US banks have increased by about one-third since 2012, and their reliance on short-term wholesale funding has “dropped considerably.” The amount and quality of capital, and the strength of liquidity at large banks, are “greatly improved.”

Risk management

She said the Fed sees “some evidence of improved risk management, internal controls, and governance at large firms. But large firms still have room for improvement in this area, and supervisors will be watching closely.”

Banks’ so-called living wills, annual hypothetical plans for a fast and orderly bankruptcy, “still have a number of shortcomings,” she said.

The Fed “expects these institutions to make substantial progress in the coming months, which will leave firms and the government better-positioned to manage the failure of a large institution.”

Bloomberg

Related Article:

Biggest Global Banks Go to Pieces Under Pressure From Regulators

UBS Whistle-Blower Says Bank Has ‘Global’ Issue With Tax Evaders

Jakarta Globe, Fabio Benedetti-Valentini, Mar 04, 2015

Republican Guards walk in the rain during a ceremony to welcome Quebec
Prime Minister Philippe Couillard during a ceremony in the courtyard of the
 Hotel des Invalides in Paris on March 2, 2015. (AFP Photo/Philippe Wojazer)

The former UBS Group banker whose cooperation with the U.S. helped expose tax evasion by thousands of Americans says the Swiss bank used similar practices elsewhere and he’s eager to help European governments.

“It’s not a U.S. issue, it’s not a French issue, it’s a global issue. UBS is the problem,” Bradley Birkenfeld said in an interview the day after testifying in a French investigation into similar allegations against UBS. “They’ve been doing it in every market: the Greek market, the Spanish market, the Italian market, the Scandinavian market, the German — I can go on and on, you get the picture.”

The French charged the world’s largest manager of money for the rich last year with laundering the proceeds of tax fraud and ordered the Zurich-based bank to pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) to cover a potential penalty should the criminal probe result in a guilty finding. The judge leading the probe asked Birkenfeld to come to Paris to testify as a witness, according to a U.S. court decision authorizing the trip.

Birkenfeld’s testimony in the U.S. case helped secure a $780 million settlement with the bank in 2009. He went to prison for his role and is still on probation. In the interview with Bloomberg News, he said that during his years at UBS in Switzerland, he often spoke with colleagues who worked with French clients and understands how they operated.

French probe

“A witness who actively lobbied to get invited, needed to receive special permission to travel due to his court-ordered supervisory release, and never worked in the business in question, should have limited credibility,” UBS said in an e- mailed statement.

On the French case, the bank said, “the matter remains in a formal investigation phase, there is nothing more to add at this point.” Previously, the bank said the French probe has become a “highly politicized process” and that it’s “taken significant and broad steps to ensure tax compliance of our clients and will continue to do so.”

The U.S.-born banker flew to Paris last week and met with investigators led by judge Guillaume Daieff on Feb. 27, he said. In an interview the next day at a hotel near the Arc de Triomphe, Birkenfeld recounted his time at UBS in Switzerland, where he worked from 2001 to 2006. He declined to go into specifics about the judges’ questions.

‘Boys’ club’

He was part of a team that catered to 19,000 U.S. wealthy clients with about $20 billion in assets, he said. As a director, Birkenfeld said he “made good money for the bank and my clients” during his years at UBS.

He said that while he focused on North America, he spoke with his colleagues handling Europeans. UBS managed even more assets from Switzerland for French clients than for Americans, Birkenfeld said.

While he said in the Feb. 28 interview that he doesn’t deny he was “part of it,” Birkenfeld said he wants to use his knowledge of Geneva’s private banking “little boys’ club” to foster public awareness and fight financial misdeeds.

Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to conspiracy for his role in the U.S. case and was sentenced to 40 months in prison. After his release, he received a $104 million whistle-blower award from the Internal Revenue Service.

Since UBS handed over account names to the U.S., at least 50,000 U.S. taxpayers have avoided prosecution by disclosing offshore accounts to the IRS, generating more than $7 billion in taxes, interest and penalties.

Birkenfeld said he’s ready to help other authorities as he is with the French, “free of charge.” He is already cooperating with two that he declined to identify.

Birkenfeld turned 50 the day before meeting the judges. He now lives in New Hampshire, and it was his first trip to Europe since 2008.

Bloomberg

Stuart Gulliver in Hong Kong in 2012: leaked files show that the HSBC chief

 executive was a client of the bank’s Swiss subsidiary at the centre of the

scandal. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Biggest Global Banks Go to Pieces Under Pressure From Regulators

Saudi Arabia gives top prize to cleric who blames George Bush for 9/11

Controversial Indian preacher Zakir Naik awarded the King Faisal international prize for promoting Islam through his hugely popular Peace TV channel

The Guardian - AFP, 1 March 2015

Zakir Naik siad ‘even a fool will know’ that the 9/11 attacks were an
‘inside job’. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

An Indian television preacher who has called the 9/11 attacks an “inside job” received one of Saudi Arabia’s most prestigious prizes on Sunday, for “service to Islam”.

Zakir Naik, president of the Islamic Research Foundation in India, was one of five recipients of the King Faisal international prize from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman during a ceremony at a luxury Riyadh hotel.

The annual prizes are a project of the King Faisal Foundation, established in 1976 by the children of King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz who died in 1975.

Naik was honoured for being one of the most renowned non-Arabic speaking promoters of Islam. He founded the Peace TV channel, billed as the world’s only channel specialising in comparative religion.

It has an estimated English-language audience exceeding 100 million, according to his award citation.

“Islam is the only religion that can bring peace to the whole of humanity,” he said in a video biography aired at the ceremony.

In a July 2008 Peace TV broadcast, Naik suggested that al-Qaida was not responsible for flying hijacked airliners into New York’s World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, killing almost 3,000 people.

“Even a fool will know that this was an inside job,” he said in the video, claiming then-president George W Bush was behind the attacks.

In 2010 Naik was reportedly barred from entering Britain for “numerous comments” which showed his “unacceptable behaviour”.

Naik said on Sunday that he would donate all of his $200,000 prize money to Peace TV.

The other prizewinners were:

In Islamic studies, Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Kaki for his research on the cultural heritage of the Muslim holy city of Medina

In medicine, Jeffrey Ivan Gordon of the United States, whose research has enhanced understanding of diseases such as obesity, which is a growing problem in Saudi Arabia

Michael Gratzel of Switzerland for his development of solar cells, and co-winner Omar Mwannes Yaghi of the United States for his work in the new field of metal organic frameworks

Related Articles:

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What Really Happened on 9/11? (Matthew’s Message, April 26, 2005)

Kryon Q&A

Question (2002): Dear Kryon, A friend and I are meditating on the recent shark attacks and feel that it has to do with the planetary changes. We just can’t understand why they have become aggressive. What is the message the sharks are bringing? Why is this happening?

—Thank you,

Maryann

Answer: Indeed there are changes with the environment and also with biology regarding the 12-year grid change. I will first give you what was happening in general: What you are seeing are mammals, amphibians, insects, and even fish that are in areas that are new to them. Every life-form that migrates is effected by magnetics. All life forms that follows certain feeding scenarios and are “following the food” have the potential to be affected. This is due to the changing of the magnetic ley lines of the earth as we have stated before.

The areas where you can see in the ocean most clearly are within those migration patterns closest to the land. Where the ocean interfaces with the land, there are challenges for all these creatures for at least one of their generations. Whales will beach themselves by following old magnetics headings that now “drive” them into peninsula’s and other land areas that were marginally on the edge of their old paths. Birds, amphibians, and insects will be seen to do odd things for awhile.

So these shark fish may be in greater numbers in these coastal areas than in the past, but the increased aggressive behavior was actually something else: There was a tremendous “release” of energy due to the Sept. 11 event. Much like the energy of earthquakes and other earth movement, much of the environment “feels it” coming. We have spoken about how the Sept. 11 event was not a surprise to the earth. [See Lee’s article “Did Kryon give us hints”] So, some of the new actions of these fish were due to an actual energy buildup of coming events... of which you now understand.

If you are paying attention, therefore, you might ask, “Does this mean that Human consciousness issues affect the actual earth?” Yes they do! Finally you may begin to see how global consciousness is tied into the environment, and even to basic physics and reality. They are not separate, and never were. The indigenous knew it, and now the “modern” world is beginning to wonder.

Blessed is the Human Being who understands that what they think, do, and intend, actually drives the reality of the dirt of the planet!