Remember the immortal words of George Carlin: “They don’t give a fuck about you.”
Fed and Treasury Irate at NY Bank Regulator’s Vulgar Display of Public Diligence with Standard Chartered
The NY Banking regulators clearly do not understand the regulatory ‘hands off’ philosophy of Treasury and the Fed towards the pampered princes of finance and the privileged few.
This was supposed to have been privately settled amongst gentlemen with a gentle wristslap and a thorough coverup.
And of course this exposes the Federal government and their financerati as utter hypocrites, especially when they are stoking the fires of conflict.
Only the little people are meant to suffer for their country. For the favored few, everything is just another law-bending, money making opportunity.
Some of the wording in this is priceless, especially considering the extent of what the Bank had done and with whom.
I won’t be holding my breath for the US regulators to clean up their own manipulated markets and privileged insiders. It might muss someone’s ruffled sleeves and Presidential cufflinks.
Liberty and justice — for some.
Reuters
Exclusive: Regulators irate at NY action against StanChart
By Carrick Mollenkamp and Emily Flitter and Karen Freifeld
August 8, 2012NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve were blindsided and angered by New York’s banking regulator’s decision to launch an explosive attack on Standard Chartered Plc over $250 billion in alleged money laundering transactions tied to Iran, sources familiar with the situation said.
By going it alone through the order he issued on Monday, Benjamin Lawsky, head of the recently created New York State Department of Financial Services, also complicates talks between the Treasury and London-based Standard Chartered to settle claims over the transactions, several of the sources said.
Lawsky’s stunning move, which included releasing embarrassing communications and details of the bank’s alleged defiance of U.S. sanctions against Iran, is rewriting the playbook on how foreign banks settle cases involving the processing of shadowy funds tied to sanctioned countries.
In the past, such cases have usually been settled through negotiation – with public shaming kept to a minimum.
In his order, Lawsky said Standard Chartered’s dealings exposed the U.S. banking system to terrorists, drug traffickers and corrupt states.
But the upset expressed by some federal officials, who were given virtually no notice of the New York move, may provide ammunition for Standard Chartered to portray the allegations as coming from a relatively new and over-zealous regulator…
Read the rest here.
Hope this guy watches his back, for ,despite the fact he is doing what is right, there is a big bulls eye target on it now. John
This is big.
This is the sort of thing that ended with a hooker in Elliot Spitzer’s hotel room. Watch out for the “unfortunate revelation” that should be along shortly. Then, sharpen thy pitchforks and oil the torches.
Laws are for the little people. Someone caught with a bag of weed gets more time than someone who steals peoples life savings.But we all know that.
NYS Bank Regulator to Treasury: Drop Dead
By Barry Ritholtz – August 8th, 2012, 7:28AM
“Pursuant to the statutory powers vested in him by the People of the State of New York . . . [and] extensive investigation included the review of more than 30,000 pages of documents, including internal SCB [Standard Chartered Bank] e-mails that describe willful and egregious violations of law.
For almost ten years, SCB schemed with the Government of Iran and hid from regulators roughly 60,000 secret transactions, involving at least $250 billion, and reaping SCB hundreds of millions of dollars in fees. SCB’s actions left the U.S. financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes, and deprived law enforcement investigators of crucial information used to track all manner of criminal activity.
-NYS Department of Financial Services
>
Benjamin Lawsky, head of the New York State Department of Financial Services, has declared that the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve is “too corrupt” to be involved in NY’s actions against money launderers and Iran sponsors at Standard Chartered bank.
At least, that corruption is what was implied by his actions (note those are my words, not his). Lawsky refused to give Tim Geithner or Ben Bernanke or anyone else at Treasury or the Fed any advance notice of pending legal/regulatory actions. Sorry, Treasury, he seemed to be saying, but your track records preceded you.
Good for him.
I wish more state regulators, attorneys general, and banking supervisors would distance themselves from all Federal relations. At least, until the regulatory incompetence, which came into full flower under George W. Bush and continues unabated under Barrack Obama, com es to its miserable end. We have a Republic, with separate rules for state and national regulations. It is apparent to all that nearly all Federal regulators, other than the FDIC, have dropped the ball.
Start with the corruption of the Treasury department going back to Robert Rubin. His tenure, working in concert with Alan Greenspan and Phil Gramm, was where the office of the Treasury Secretary turned into a Wall Street subsidiary. The revolving door policy was in full view. Once Treasury was corrupted, it was a short hop to the rest of the oversight infrastructure taking their level of regulatory capture to new levels. That would be during the BUsh administration.
This Treasury Department, like the one that preceded it, along with Congress and the White House, have proven themselves to be utterly incapable of overseeing the banking industry. Rather than adhere to this betrayal of the public trust, Mr. Lawsky decided to do something amazing: He actually followed the law. The rest of the regulatory sector should take note.
Have a read of the paragraph at the top of this page to see how prosecution of banking felons and their crony capitalist allies is supposed to be done.
We live in the Banana Republic formerly known as the United States. Its time to turn this nation back into a Democracy . . .
“You f—ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians?”
Exactly.
OK, I know that people here aren’t exactly friendly to the idea of sanctions on Iran…. So bear with me.
We sanction Iran for supposed terrorist activities. We are conducting wars in which insurgents are blowing limbs off of our family and friends with hardware funneled through Iran.
Like history reads, for those who can stomach scratching the surface, large international banking institutions play both sides of conflicts… Somehow the victors and vanquished alike end up repaying loans used to purchase wares from hardware dealers…. with the highest interest possible.
So, what this whole action says is that a State Prosecutor cares more for stopping activity which borders on treason from occurring in his jurisdiction by a bank protected (in a special economic zone) by a supposed ally.
It says that the people at the top don’t give a shit about the worries of the people who staff the armed forces.
It says that fines are enough punishment for financing what is declared our mortal enemy.
It says that the people who call this an “Attack on the City of London” are that much vested in the harm that befalls not only American citizens overseas but British Subjects as well.
Thank you, Benjamin Lawsky. I haven’t heard your name before last night, but thank you for stating for all to see the near-diabolical game being played by entities that have no soul. Go get them, BenLaw, and expose all roadblocks to this end for what they are. They don’t belong in the United States and certainly not under British protection.
Let them set up shop in Tehran and Singapore…. Where lawless transactions are met with stones and canes.
We sanction Iran for only one reason…we are Israel’s bitch.