US launches financial attacks against its allies!

The United States and Britain have claimed they have “special relations” for a long period. But recently, the United States has cracked down on large British banks successively.

Barclays Bank was accused of manipulating the interest rate. HSBC Bank was charged of laundering money for drug cartels. Presently, Standard Chartered Bank also turns into the target of U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency.

The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) said that since Standard Chartered Bank violated the U.S. Anti-Money Laundering Law and sanctions law against Iran, its business license would be revoked. At first, the Standard Chartered Bank denied the accusation and wanted to file a counterclaim. Experts in the City of London also blamed the DFS for its dictatorship. But a dramatic change subsequently occurred. The Standard Chartered Bank accepted the solution of being fined 340 million U.S. dollars and saved its license in the New York City.

Regarding the attack, the British government has not responded.

Why did U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency crack down upon large British banks one after another? Why did British government tolerate these attacks silently? 

For the United States, there are three reasons.

Politically, in the general election year, the United States does not have the energy to launch a military operation against Iran and therefore it pays more attention to the implementation of sanctions against Iran.

Diplomatically, the United States wants to warn large European banks not to take any chance on the sanctions against Iran, which also frightens other European allies of the United States.

Financially, striking large British banks and belittling the role of Britain as the global financial center are favorable for the Wall Street.

On the British side, although the financial circle opposed that the United States attacked the British banks with sanctions law as an excuse, it did not mention the British banks’ pursuit of profits regardless of professional ethics. That is the reason why the Britain still resorted to the fastest resolution of the scandal in face of U.S. “extortion”.

Britain is not the only country having “special relations” with the United States. Recently, U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency pays close attention to the Deutsche Bank. Obviously, neither Standard Chartered Bank nor the Deutsche Bank is the last target of the United States.

Read the Chinese version: 美国向盟友挥起“金融大棒”, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, author: Li Wenyun
 Newscribe : get free news in real time

Related posts:

The Libor fuss! 
The Standard Chartered Debacle; How Not To Go After A Big Bank?
Standard Chartered Bank shares plunge on laundering charges
Anarchy in the financial markets!
Libor scandal blows to British banking system
HSBC exposed: Drug money banking, terror dealings ...
HSBC's US$2b cover Money is for cost of US probe and ...
Moody's downgrades 15 major banks: Citigroup, HSBC ...

US launches financial attacks against its allies!

The United States and Britain have claimed they have “special relations” for a long period. But recently, the United States has cracked down on large British banks successively.

Barclays Bank was accused of manipulating the interest rate. HSBC Bank was charged of laundering money for drug cartels. Presently, Standard Chartered Bank also turns into the target of U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency.

The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) said that since Standard Chartered Bank violated the U.S. Anti-Money Laundering Law and sanctions law against Iran, its business license would be revoked. At first, the Standard Chartered Bank denied the accusation and wanted to file a counterclaim. Experts in the City of London also blamed the DFS for its dictatorship. But a dramatic change subsequently occurred. The Standard Chartered Bank accepted the solution of being fined 340 million U.S. dollars and saved its license in the New York City.

Regarding the attack, the British government has not responded.

Why did U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency crack down upon large British banks one after another? Why did British government tolerate these attacks silently? 

For the United States, there are three reasons.

Politically, in the general election year, the United States does not have the energy to launch a military operation against Iran and therefore it pays more attention to the implementation of sanctions against Iran.

Diplomatically, the United States wants to warn large European banks not to take any chance on the sanctions against Iran, which also frightens other European allies of the United States.

Financially, striking large British banks and belittling the role of Britain as the global financial center are favorable for the Wall Street.

On the British side, although the financial circle opposed that the United States attacked the British banks with sanctions law as an excuse, it did not mention the British banks’ pursuit of profits regardless of professional ethics. That is the reason why the Britain still resorted to the fastest resolution of the scandal in face of U.S. “extortion”.

Britain is not the only country having “special relations” with the United States. Recently, U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency pays close attention to the Deutsche Bank. Obviously, neither Standard Chartered Bank nor the Deutsche Bank is the last target of the United States.

Read the Chinese version: 美国向盟友挥起“金融大棒”, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, author: Li Wenyun
 Newscribe : get free news in real time

Related posts:

The Libor fuss! 
The Standard Chartered Debacle; How Not To Go After A Big Bank?
Standard Chartered Bank shares plunge on laundering charges
Anarchy in the financial markets!
Libor scandal blows to British banking system
HSBC exposed: Drug money banking, terror dealings ...
HSBC's US$2b cover Money is for cost of US probe and ...
Moody's downgrades 15 major banks: Citigroup, HSBC ...

HSBC’s US$2b cover Money is for cost of US probe and compensation

LONDON: HSBC's chief executive has apologised for shameful and embarrassing mistakes made on anti-money laundering controls as the bank set aside US$2bil to cover the cost of US investigations and compensate UK customers for misselling.

Europe's biggest bank reported a 3% dip in underlying profit and said it had made a provision of US$700mil to cover “certain law enforcement and regulatory matters” after a US Senate report this month criticised HSBC for letting clients shift funds from dangerous and secretive countries.

The report criticised a “pervasively polluted” culture at the bank and said that HSBC's Mexican operations had moved US$7bil into the bank's US operations between 2007 and 2008.

Gulliver: ‘What happened in Mexico and the United States is shameful, it’s embarrassing, it’s very painful for all of us in the firm.’
 

“What happened in Mexico and the United States is shameful, it's embarrassing, it's very painful for all of us in the firm,” chief executive Stuart Gulliver told reporters on a conference call yesterday, adding that the eventual costs could be “significantly higher”.

“We apologise for our past mistakes in relation to anti-money laundering controls, and it is a priority for senior management to build on steps already taken to manage risk and ensure compliance more effectively,” Gulliver said.

Analysts had said the US investigations could result in a fine of about US$1bil.

HSBC is also one of several banks being investigated in a global interest rate rigging scandal that has rocked the sector. Gulliver said it had submitted information to regulators but it was far too early to say what the outcome would be or to estimate the potential cost for the bank.

HSBC has set aside US$1.3bil to compensate UK customers for misselling loan insurance to individuals and interest rate hedging products to small businesses.

The bank reported a pre-tax profit of US$12.7bil for the six months to the end of June, up 11% on the year and above an average analyst forecast of US$12.5bil, according to a poll by the company.

But underlying profit, stripping out gains from US assets sales and losses on the value of its own debt, was down 3% on the year to US$10.6bil.

Shares in HSBC were up 0.7% to 534.6 pence, lagging a 1.8 % rise in Europe's bank index. Reuters  

Related posts:

HSBC exposed: Drug money banking, terror dealings ...
Moody's downgrades 15 major banks: Citigroup, HSBC ...
Barclays, HSBC, BoA among big European, US Banks ... 

Lawyer fleeced millions from victims in property scam

Lawyer on the run

 KUALA LUMPUR : A 44-year-old lawyer is said to be on the run with millions of ringgit from a get-rich-quick scheme involving properties in the Klang Valley.

The man is alleged to be the mastermind behind a syndicate which had duped more than 500 investors nationwide into parting with between RM25,000 and RM80,000 each under a racket similar to the Ponzi scheme.

Over the short span of about a year that the scheme was active, the syndicate also took ownership of more than 200 properties mainly apartments and flats units worth about RM15 million under the lawyer’s name and several of his proxies.

According to sources, the syndicate had offered a list of properties it owned to investors for low prices on a deal to help them re-sell it at much higher prices.

Upon the victims picking the property of their choice and settling payment in full, the syndicate produced fake sale-and-purchase and ownership documents.

With the dud documents, the victims were given the notion that they were the new owners of the property and were assured of earning rental income from it until it is sold at a profit.

Police learnt that the ownership of the properties never changed hands and went on to remain in the names of the syndicate members.

The “sold” properties were then “resold” several times again to other potential investors who were also given fake ownership documentation.

Last year, several investors who realised they had been fleeced by the syndicate lodged police reports at the Brickfields police station.

An investigation was initiated by the police Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) after elements of fraud and illegal deposit-taking was found in the case.

On getting wind that the authorities were looking for him, the lawyer, his accomplices and proxies fled the country together with their ill-gotten gains.

Earlier this year, the Special Task Force (Operations and Terrorism) Department’s anti-money laundering branch was roped in to assist in the probe.

After months of painstakingly compiling a list of the said properties, the investigation team obtained a court order two weeks ago to seize 79 flats and apartment units out of the 188 police had identified.

Federal special task force director Commissioner Datuk Mohamad Fuzi Harun told theSun that police have sought the help of Interpol to track down the mastermind and his accomplices.

“Most of the victims were retirees and senior citizens from the middle and low-income groups who lost either a large portion or all of their life savings.

“When we checked, several dozens of the ‘houses’ sold by the syndicate did not even exist or were not up for sale at all. The victims did not appear to own any of the properties.

“They were merely given falsified and fake documents. We have identified 188 and seized 79 properties so far but we believe there are more out there which we are trying to trace, he said, adding that Malaysian police have alerted Interpol to be on the lookout for the suspects who have gone into hiding overseas.

Mohamad Fuzi said police believe there are hundreds of people who have been fleeced in the racket and have yet to lodge police reports.
He advised them to come forward to assist police investigations.

The case is being probed as cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code while the seizure of properties were made under Section 41 of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act (Amla).

Charles Ramendran newsdesk@thesundaily.com 

http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/legal/general_news/lawyer_on_the_run.html