If you’re sore about the London gold fixing, contact Berger & Montague
March 6, 2014
GATA’s sometime lawyers, Berger & Montague in Philadelphia, a leading national antitrust law firm, are among those investigating complaints about the daily London gold price fixing, whose suppression of the gold price was documented by GATA’s late board member Adrian Douglas in 2010:
In recent weeks the daily London gold fixing has been impugned by two studies —
http://www.gata.org/node/13700
http://www.gata.org/node/13681
— and one federal antitrust lawsuit already has been filed against the five participating banks:
http://www.gata.org/node/13723
If such a lawsuit ever got into what is called the discovery phase, the records of the banks might become subject to a court’s review and eventually public, exposing the banks’ transactions with the Western central banks that long have been underwriting the gold price suppression scheme.
Of course GATA supports such exposure and encourages gold traders and gold mining companies who feel harmed by gold price suppression generally and the London gold fix particularly to contact Berger & Montague’s lead lawyer, GATA’s friend Merrill Davidoff, to learn more about the firm’s investigation. Presumably that investigation could lead to another federal anti-trust lawsuit for which plaintiffs would be needed.
Contact information about Berger & Montague can be found at its Internet site here:
http://www.bergermontague.com/
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
GOLD IS GONE: Cornered by CHINA
Posted Mar 10, 2014
IN THIS INTERVIEW with Alasdair Macleod & Bill Murphy:
– Mainstream Media reports gold manipulation: 1:19 ~ Bloomberg article: http://bloom.bg/1fQiknL
– Central banks should consider that many of them won’t get their gold back: 4:55 ~ Macleod’s article: http://www.goldmoney.com/research/ana…
– Gold market in a new bull phase: 8:54 ~ South Carolina reports gold manipulation: http://youtu.be/UWK5UQDCDTc?t=18m41s
– Fed tapering will have no effect on gold prices: 12:45
– China’s shadow banking system implosion to be the catalyst for gold price spike: 16:09
– Sergei Glazyev, Kremlin economic aide, “An attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States”: 19:43 ~ Telegraph article: http://telegraph.co.uk/a/10669670
– Russian parliament is considering the possibility of confiscating U.S. and European companies’ property and assets: 22:52 ~ Source: http://bloom.bg/1kGIkWp
Barclays, Deutsche Bank Accused of Gold Fix Manipulation
By Bob Van Voris and Debarati Roy Mar 5, 2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-04/barclays-deutsche-bank-accused-of-gold-fix-manipulation.html
Barclays Plc (BARC), Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) and three other banks were accused in a lawsuit of manipulating the London gold fix, a benchmark used throughout the $20 trillion market for the metal.
Kevin Maher, a New York resident who said he bought and sold gold and gold futures and options, sued yesterday in Manhattan federal court claiming the five banks overseeing the century-old benchmark colluded to manipulate it.
Maher cited press reports in his complaint, including a Bloomberg News story last week on a draft paper by two researchers showing what they said were unusual pricing patterns connected to the gold fix. The paper was the first study to raise the possibility that the banks, which also include Bank of Nova Scotia, HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Societe Generale SA (GLE), may have been actively working together to manipulate the benchmark.
Authorities around the world, already investigating the manipulation of benchmarks from interest rates to foreign exchange, are also examining the gold market for signs of wrongdoing.
German financial markets regulator Bafin interviewed Deutsche Bank employees as part of a probe into the potential manipulation of gold and silver prices. Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority is also scrutinizing how prices are calculated.
Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, said in January it would withdraw from the panels setting the gold and silver fixings.
Fix ‘Dated’
Scotiabank Chief Executive Officer Brian Porter said the process is outdated and should be reviewed. Speaking today in an interview at Bloomberg News in New York, he said he would welcome more members.
“The fix is dated, it has been around for a long period of time,” Porter said on Bloomberg TV. “It should be reviewed and any degree of transparency we could bring to that would be healthy.”
Porter said he couldn’t discuss the lawsuit. “We are comfortable how we run the business,” he said in an interview. “We are customer-focused and we will defend ourselves.”
Maher is seeking to represent a class of all investors who, from 2004 to now, held or traded gold and gold derivatives that were priced based on the gold fix or who held or traded COMEX gold futures or options. He’s seeking unspecified damages on behalf of the class. Damages may be tripled under U.S. antitrust law.
‘Without Merit’
“We believe this suit is without merit and will vigorously defend against it,” Renee Calabro, a spokeswoman for Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, said in an e-mail.
Mark Lane, a spokesman for London-based Barclays, and Juanita Gutierrez, a spokeswoman for London-based HSBC, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
“The claims are unsubstantiated and Societe Generale will defend these against proceedings,” Saphia Gaouaoui, a spokeswoman for the Paris-based bank, said today in an e-mailed statement.
The London gold fix is the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal. According to the researchers, it may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it.
Trading Patterns
Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call among the five banks, are a sign of possible collusive behavior and should be investigated, New York University’s Stern School of Business Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody’s Investors Service, wrote in the draft research paper.
In February, officials at Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Societe Generale declined to comment on the report. Joe Konecny, a spokesman for Toronto-based Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), didn’t respond to a message seeking comment on the report at the time.
The rate-setting ritual dates to 1919. Dealers in the early years met in a wood-paneled room in Rothschild’s office in the City of London and raised little Union Jacks to indicate interest. Now the fix is calculated twice a day on telephone conferences at 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. London time. The calls usually last 10 minutes, though they can run more than an hour.
Firms declare how many bars of gold they want to buy or sell at the current spot price, based on orders from clients and themselves. The price is increased or reduced until the buy and sell amounts are within 50 bars, or about 620 kilograms, of each other, at which point the fix is set.
Traders relay shifts in supply and demand to clients during the call and take fresh orders to buy or sell as the price changes, according to the website of London Gold Market Fixing, where the results are published. The process is unregulated and the five banks can trade gold and its derivatives throughout the call.
The case is Maher v. Bank of Nova Scotia, 14-cv-01459, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net; Debarati Roy in New York at droy5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net; Millie Munshi at mmunshi@bloomberg.net
.
Gold Fix Study Shows Signs of Decade of Bank Manipulation
The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say.
Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behavior and should be investigated, New York University’s Stern School of Business Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody’s Investors Service, wrote in a draft research paper.
Video: Are Gold Prices Being Manipulated by Banks?
“The structure of the benchmark is certainly conducive to collusion and manipulation, and the empirical data are consistent with price artificiality,” they say in the report, which hasn’t yet been submitted for publication. “It is likely that co-operation between participants may be occurring.”
The paper is the first to raise the possibility that the five banks overseeing the century-old rate — Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Societe Generale SA (GLE) — may have been actively working together to manipulate the benchmark. It also adds to pressure on the firms to overhaul the way the rate is calculated. Authorities around the world, already investigating the manipulation of benchmarks from interest rates to foreign exchange, are examining the $20 trillion gold market for signs of wrongdoing.
Union Jacks
The paper “is not a Moody’s research report,” Michael Adler, a spokesman for the firm, said in an e-mail. “The co-author of the paper was writing independent of his position at Moody’s and was representing his own research findings and viewpoint.”
Officials at London Gold Market Fixing Ltd., the company owned by the banks that administer the rate, referred requests for comment to Societe Generale, which holds the rotating chairmanship of the group. Officials at Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Societe Generale declined to comment on the report and the future of the benchmark. Joe Konecny, a spokesman for Bank of Nova Scotia, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Libor Scandal Sets Off a Wave of Probes
Abrantes-Metz advises the European Union and the International Organization of Securities Commissions on financial benchmarks. Her 2008 paper “Libor Manipulation?” helped uncover the rigging of the London interbank offered rate, which has led financial firms including Barclays Plc (BARC) and UBS AG to be fined about $6 billion in total. She is a paid expert witness to lawyers, providing economic analysis for litigation. Metz heads credit policy research at ratings company Moody’s.
Unregulated Process
The rate-setting ritual dates back to 1919. Dealers in the early years met in a wood-paneled room in Rothschild’s office in the City of London and raised little Union Jacks to indicate interest. Now the fix is calculated twice a day on telephone conferences at 10:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. London time. The calls usually last 10 minutes, though they can run more than an hour.
Firms declare how many bars of gold they want to buy or sell at the current spot price, based on orders from clients and themselves. The price is increased or reduced until the buy and sell amounts are within 50 bars, or about 620 kilograms, of each other, at which point the fix is set.
Traders relay shifts in supply and demand to clients during the call and take fresh orders to buy or sell as the price changes, according to the website of London Gold Market Fixing, where the results are published. At 3 p.m. yesterday, the price was $1,332.25 an ounce. The process is unregulated and the five banks can trade gold and its derivatives throughout the call.
All Down
Bloomberg News reported in November concerns among traders and economists that the fixing banks and their clients had an unfair advantage because information gleaned from the calls provided an insight into the future direction of prices and banks can bet on spot and derivatives markets during the call.
Abrantes-Metz and Metz screened intraday trading in the spot gold market from 2001 to 2013 for sudden, unexplained moves that may indicate illegal behavior. From 2004, they observed frequent spikes in spot gold prices during the afternoon call. The moves weren’t replicated during the morning call and hadn’t happened before 2004, they found.
Large price moves during the afternoon call were also overwhelmingly in the same direction: down. On days when the authors identified large price moves during the fix, they were downwards at least two-thirds of the time in six different years between 2004 and 2013. In 2010, large moves during the fix were negative 92 percent of the time, the authors found.
There’s no obvious explanation as to why the patterns began in 2004, why they were more prevalent in the afternoon fixing, and why price moves tended to be downwards, Abrantes-Metz said in a telephone interview this week.
Bafin, FCA
“This is a first attempt to uncover potentially manipulative behavior and the results are concerning,” she said. “It’s down to regulators to establish why there are such striking patterns but banks have the means, motive and opportunity to manipulate the fixing. The results are consistent with the possibility of collusion.”
Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, said in January that it will withdraw from the panels setting the gold and silver fixings. German financial markets regulator Bafin interviewed the Frankfurt-based bank’s employees as part of a probe into the potential manipulation of gold and silver prices.
“In general, research that finds certain price patterns does not as such constitute evidence of manipulation,” said Thorsten Polleit, chief economist at Frankfurt-based precious-metals broker Degussa Goldhandel GmbH and a former Barclays economist. “However, it might encourage interest in finding out more about the sources of these price patterns.”
‘Appropriate Oversight’ [faux]
The five banks that oversee the fixing set up a steering committee and will appoint external advisers to consider reforms before EU legislation on financial benchmarks’ regulation and oversight comes into force, Bloomberg reported last month.
Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority is also scrutinizing how prices are calculated. The regulator published a report this week outlining its remit for regulating commodities including gold, saying that while it’s responsible for commodities derivatives, it doesn’t regulate physical commodities.
“Abusive behavior can occur in the physical commodity markets which in turn can have an impact on, or be directly linked with, financial market activity and prices,” the FCA said in the report. “The regulatory regime — both in the U.K. and internationally — needs to be adapted to ensure robust and appropriate oversight.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Liam Vaughan in London at lvaughan6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Heather Smith at hsmith26@bloomberg.net; Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net
.
Gold price rigging fears put investors on alert
Global gold prices may have been manipulated on 50 per cent of occasions between January 2010 and December 2013, according to analysis by Fideres, a consultancy.
The findings come amid a probe by German and UK regulators into alleged manipulation of the gold price, which is set twice a day by Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Barclays, Bank of Nova Scotia and Société Générale in a process known as the “London gold fixing”.
Fideres’ research found the gold price frequently climbs (or falls) once a twice-daily conference call between the five banks begins, peaks (or troughs) almost exactly as the call ends and then experiences a sharp reversal, a pattern it alleged may be evidence of “collusive behaviour”.
“[This] is indicative of panel banks pushing the gold price upwards on the basis of a strategy that was likely predetermined before the start of the call in order to benefit their existing positions or pending orders,” Fideres concluded.
“The behaviour of the gold price is very suspicious in 50 per cent of cases. This is not something you would expect to see if you take into account normal market factors,“ said Alberto Thomas, a partner at Fideres.
Alasdair Macleod, head of research at GoldMoney, a dealer in physical gold, added: “When the banks fix the price, the advantage they have is that they know what orders they have in the pocket. There is a possibility that they are gaming the system.”
Pension funds, hedge funds, commodity trading advisers and futures traders are most likely to have suffered losses as a result, according to Mr Thomas, who said that many of these groups were “definitely ready” to file lawsuits.
Daniel Brockett, a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel, also said he had spoken to several investors concerned about potential losses.
“It is fair to say that economic work suggests there are certain days when [the five banks] are not only tipping their clients off, but also colluding with one another,” he said.
Matt Johnson, head of distribution at ETF Securities, one of the largest providers of exchange traded products, said that if gold price collusion is proven, “investors in products with an expiry price based around the fixing could have been badly impacted”.
Gregory Asciolla, a partner at Labaton Sucharow, a US law firm, added: “There are certainly good reasons for investors to be concerned. They are paying close attention to this and if the investigations go somewhere, it would not surprise me if there were lawsuits filed around the world.”
All five banks declined to comment on the findings, which come amid growing regulatory scrutiny of gold and precious metal benchmarks.
BaFin, the German regulator, has launched an investigation into gold-price manipulation and demanded documents from Deutsche Bank. The bank last month decided to end its role in gold and silver pricing. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is also examining how the price of gold and other precious metals is set as part of a wider probe into benchmark manipulation following findings of wrongdoing with respect to Libor and similar allegations with respect to the foreign exchange market.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has reportedly held private meetings to discuss gold manipulation, but declined to confirm or deny that an investigation was ongoing.
RELATED:
Organized Crime: Institutionalized Centralization, Globalization, Deception and Criminality
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Reblogged this on Spartan of Truth.
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The Socialist Myth of Economic Monopolies http://iakal.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/the-socialist-myth-of-economic-monopoly/
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I read your report and thank you for sharing.
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Thank you very much for the hospitality
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NYSE Closed 1914 – Was it Gear of Liquidation or Capital Flows?
Source: http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/03/15/19483/
QUESTION: I read that during World War I they closed the stock exchange for several months. Do you think this will take place again? I see few people quote you because you have the facts and they are like Al Gore, just full of hot air. You seem to be the only reliable source so if they do not quote you, they are probably not real.
Thank you so much for your efforts.
HB
ANSWER: There is so much rhetoric out there that is just wrong, only the unbiased would dare quote me for often it is a matter of integrity and trying to figure out what really makes the world tick instead of beating on your chest. If they have something to sell, then there is an agenda. The news channels and newspapers these days are just propaganda machines with an agenda. Look at Fox News and then look at the extremes like the Ed Show. Neither would dare say anything neutral about their hated political parties. They display to the world nothing different from Pravda. Same shit. It ain’t news if you have a spin.
This question is important today for those who want to understand the markets instead of people preaching some financial religion. What you state is true about the closure, yet not the “whole” truth. That event (Panic 1914) caused two major changes.
(1) the NYSE was really closed because of capital flows. There was a massive selling of US securities to take gold back to Europe to pay for the war where gold became more valuable in Europe moving to a premium at first. This is what I mean when I say it is a hedge against government. Gold moved to a premium because you do not know which currency will survive. That flipped and then the capital poured back to the USA when it became clear gold was not even safe in Europe period. Instead of abandoning the gold standard because of the massive drain from Europe, they close the NYSE thinking that would not impact the “image” of the USA abandoning the monetary system. So it was by no means a pure reflect upon stocks – it was capital flows.
The gold promoters have WRONGLY claimed inflation/hyperinflation causes gold to rise whereas in those cases everything rises in value against the currency as in Germany. This Panic of 1914 you never hear about was a hedge of what I refer to against government. It is a GLOBAL rise in the purchasing power of gold because of uncertainty as to whose currency survives – NOT because of inflation caused by one country that the dollar-haters have transformed this event into. It is WHY I have also stated that the fundamental requirement of a bull market is the rise MUST take place in all currencies. Unless you FULLY understand the REAL historical facts, you will buy on the wrong info and lose your shirt when it declines because you bought for the wrong reason.
(2) When the exchange reopened in 1915, how stocks traded was altered, which is why you will find real data on the NYSE back only to 1915. Previously, stocks traded in dollars, but the quotes were expressed as a percentage of the stock’s par value. Therefore, prior to 1915, stocks traded like bonds say 95 was 5% below par. Beginning in 1915, the NYSE reopened and traded at “market value”.
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Everything Is Rigged! Bond – Stocks – Real Estate – BUBBLES
The first thing that comes to most people’s minds when they think of investing is the stock market. After all, stocks are exciting. The swings in the market are scrutinized in the newspapers and even covered by local evening newscasts. Stories of investors gaining great wealth in the stock market are common.
Bonds, on the other hand, don’t have the same sex appeal. The lingo seems arcane and confusing to the average person. Plus, bonds are much more boring – especially during raging bull markets, when they seem to offer an insignificant return compared to stocks.
However, all it takes is a bear market to remind investors of the virtues of a bond’s safety and stability.
Most bond transactions can be completed through a full service or discount brokerage. You can also open an account with a bond broker, but be warned that most bond brokers require a minimum initial deposit of $5,000. If you cannot afford this amount, we suggest looking at a mutual fund that specializes in bonds (or a bond fund).
Some financial institutions will provide their clients with the service of transacting government securities. However, if your bank doesn’t provide this service and you do not have a brokerage account, you can purchase government bonds through a government agency (this is true in most countries). In the U.S. you can buy bonds directly from the government through TreasuryDirect at http://www.treasurydirect.gov. The Bureau of the Public Debt started TreasuryDirect so that individuals could buy bonds directly from the Treasury, thereby bypassing a broker. All transactions and interest payments are done electronically.
If you do decide to purchase a bond through your broker, he or she may tell you that the trade is commission free. Don’t be fooled. What typically happens is that the broker will mark up the price slightly; this markup is really the same as a commission. To make sure that you are not being taken advantage of, simply look up the latest quote for the bond and determine whether the markup is acceptable.
Remember, you should research bonds just as you would stocks.
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Indeed, Legal complaints have increased the pressures:
12 Largest Banks Sued By Public Retirement Funds For “Conspiring To Rig Global FX Markets”
Posted 01 April 2014 by Zerohedge.com
[…]
Why did Goldman decide to scrap its once uber-profitable FX vertical and redo it from scratch? Simple – the ability to rig and manipulate FX markets, which are now under every global regulator’s microscope after the “Cartel” members so foolishly let themselves be exposed to the entire world, is no longer there, as confirmed last night by news that a dozen large investors have filed a joint lawsuit against 12 banks for “allegedly conspiring to rig global foreign-exchange prices.” Allegedly? Hasn’t everyone read the Cartel chatroom transcripts yet?
WSJ reports:
The class-action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York late Monday, was from a group of investors across the U.S. and Caribbean, including city and state pension plans.
They accused the banks of communicating “with one another, including in chat rooms, via instant messages, and by emails, to carry out their conspiracy,” and for rigging foreign-exchange rates as far back as January 2003, the lawsuit said.
The bank sued are BofA, Barclays, BNP, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche, Goldman, HSBC, JPM, Morgan Stanley, RBS and UBS, or, in other words, everyone. And certainly all the Too Big To Prosecute banks. So best of luck there, even though the plaintiffs include some very recognizable public investment funds:
The investors behind the consolidated lawsuit are: Aureus Currency Fund LP, a Santa Rosa, Calif., investment fund; the City of Philadelphia and its board of pensions and retirement; the Employees’ Retirement System for the Government of the Virgin Islands; the Employees’ Retirement System of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority; Fresno County Employees’ Retirement Association; Haverhill Retirement System for the city of Haverhill, Mass.; Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System; State-Boston Retirement System; Tiberius OC Fund, a Cayman Islands fund; Value Recovery Fund LLC, a Delaware fund with offices in Connecticut; Syena Global Emerging Markets Fund LP, a hedge fund in Connecticut; and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
In the complaint, the investors accused the banks of controlling foreign-exchange rates via a “small and close-knit group of traders.” They alleged it became possible for banks to rig the market because the traders “have strong ties formed by working with one another in prior trading positions” and by in many cases living “in the same neighborhoods in the Essex countryside just northeast of London’s financial district.”
“They belong to the same social clubs, golf together, dine together and sit on many of the same charity boards,” the complaint adds.
[…]
But the punchline is not that FX is rigged, and as a result virtually all carbon-based traders are now gone, leaving the FX market at the mercy of Virtu and GETCO algos (those USDJPY momentum ignitions at specific, recurring times of the day are just that), but that as Goldman has shown by relocating Saidenberg, the commodity market is the only one where manipulation, rigging and fraud are not only possible but smiled upon by regulators. Because one of the key commodities in said market is gold. And as everyone knows, alongside getting the Russell 200,000 to all time highs, the other core mandate of central bankers everywhere is to push gold to 0.
The worst news: we are rapidly running out of “conspiracy theories” that haven’t become conspiracy facts yet.
Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-01/12-largest-banks-sued-public-retirement-funds-conspiring-rig-global-fx-markets
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Judge ruled Shareholders Can Pursue JPMorgan for Securities Fraud
Posted on April 3, 2014
The Independent
http://tinyurl.com/pj8z8fv
A US judge has ruled shareholders can can sue JPMorgan Chase for securities fraud over the activities of the “London whale” trader.
The US bank lost $6.2 billion (£3.7 billion) as a result of the scandal linked to trades made by Bruno Iksil from the London-based chief investment office.
District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said shareholders could pursue claims that chief executive Jamie Dimon and former chief financial officer Douglas Braunstein hid increased risks the office had been taking early in 2012, according to Reuters.
But he dismissed an action brought against bank’s directors and another brought by employees over losses made by investing in the bank’s stock in their pensions.
The judge said shareholders could press head with their claims that they were misled on the April 2012 earnings call when Dimon made the memorable quote. It related to a portfolio of “synthetic” credit that Iksil managed. They also allege that the bank materially understated its “value at risk”.
Last September the US giant was hit with $920 million (£550 million) in fines, including £138 million from Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority.
Iksil and colleagues departed the bank in the wake of the scandal as did their boss Ina Drew, who had been one of Wall Street’s most powerful women.
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