Anglo told Regulators about share deal

nesf

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5734201.ece

A secret transaction engineered by Anglo Irish Bank to prevent its stock falling was given tacit approval by the financial services authorities

Or so says the Sunday Times. Apparently, the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator were aware of and tacitly approved the secret share transaction that happened outside of the stock market involving a 10% stake in the company. The Department of Finance also knew something of this but seem to be claiming that they were unaware of the details.


This raises extremely serious questions about the oversight of our stock market and if true will hugely undermine national and international confidence in our system. This kind of behaviour will ruin the credibility of our institutions at a time when we need them at their strongest.

Sand

You know, for guys who apparently arent to blame for the crisis, the banks, the regulator and the government seem to be at the root of undermining confidence in our entire economy and the management of it.

galwayrush

And yet, the financial regulator was awarded a massive golden handshake and an amazing pension for basically ****ing up big time. Surely this is enough to make any contract on his appointment for such amazing benifits null and void?
Why are the fraud squad not involved at this stage?
Would they have to get involved if a member of the public made a complaint?

Dob74

I can see now why the banks share price continued to fall even after the bank gaurantee. Everyone one in the finanical community most have known that Anglo's books where cooked.
It will be interesting to see if AIB & BOI have been up to the same things. Looking at thier share price it looks very likely. Why should banks making over a billion on there books need a 7 billion euro bail out. Unless??????????

Dannyboy83

This just keeps getting worse and worse unfortunately.

I honestly believe we've only seen the tip of the iceberg thus far.
Its gradually becoming apparent why Brian Cowen never came forward in an expected show of Leadership.
He chose to remain silent in order to prevent any futher loss of confidence and an attempt to keep all this on the QT.

Nesf, how was this disclosed to the public/media?
Was it leaked or revealed by government?

I would love to know exactly what the government were and were not aware of pre-nationalisation.
It

I saw a report concerning Ireland on Bloomberg yesterday.
It was just a non-stop parade of the fraud that is being exposed to anyone here.
From what I understand, no one is willing to invest money here anymore, although it wouldn't take a genius to figure that out given the bank shares.

Does anyone know what our credit rating status is now at?
Is it still Triple A?

Mr.Micro

The system was to protected at all costs, collusion inadvertently or otherwise between the Regulator, the Cental Bank, ILP, Anglo and the Dept of Finance. So serious breaches and unacceptable loans etc were tolerated so as to keep the Golden Goose going. Its the tip of the iceberg IMO. Perhaps we are seeing why Anglo was saved now? Lenihan should go.

mike65

The business and chatfests tomorrow morning on radio should be worth listening to.

Sand

Does anyone know what our credit rating status is now at?
Is it still Triple A?

The AAA rated countries have been split into three categories - Germany is in the highest, UK and US in the middle one and Ireland is in the "negative" category. Strictly speaking Ireland is still AAA but its on the bottom rung and with the stream of stories coming out of Ireland highlighting the corruption and mismanagement and deliberate falsifying of financial records...the AAA rating is effectively gone.

Dannyboy83

Sand wrote: »

The AAA rated countries have been split into three categories - Germany is in the highest, UK and US in the middle one and Ireland is in the "negative" category. Strictly speaking Ireland is still AAA but its on the bottom rung and with the stream of stories coming out of Ireland highlighting the corruption and mismanagement and deliberate falsifying of financial records...the AAA rating is effectively gone.

Not as bad as I thought then:rolleyes:

Cheers mate

Mr.Micro

As of 30 Jan 2009 our rating was Aaa.



www.ntma.ie/Publications/2009/moodys_rating_jan30.pdf

nesf

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Nesf, how was this disclosed to the public/media?
Was it leaked or revealed by government?

I only know what's in the Sunday Times article, no more.

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

A secret transaction engineered by Anglo Irish Bank to prevent its stock falling was given tacit approval by the financial services authorities I would love to know exactly what the government were and were not aware of pre-nationalisation.

A lot of people would but the problem is untangling what the different branches of the Government knew and then what they knew about what each other knew. It's entirely possible (depressingly so) that the Regulator could be off doing stuff that the Dept. of Finance was only tangentially aware of. Never mind what the Dept. of Finance had told Lenihan. The idea that Lenihan is aware of everything the Regulator, Central Bank and Dept. of Finance is up to is a fallacy I'm afraid.

Pride Fighter

This is huge news, expect the ISEQ to fall by at least 10% on Monday.

deadhead13

I think this story has a long way to run yet and expect more heads to roll. All depends on whether there is a paper trail. It would be extremely stupid of them if there was - but then again......

Pal

Answer me this. Anybody. Please.

Why did Permo get involved in cooking Anglo's books ?

Why did they do it ?

pdb123

Lenihan should go

I get the feeling what i am going to say wont be popular, but I think Lenihan is doing a good job on what he has been giving to work with..

*runs away*

jmayo

nesf wrote: »

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5734201.ece

Or so says the Sunday Times. Apparently, the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator were aware of and tacitly approved the secret share transaction that happened outside of the stock market involving a 10% stake in the company. The Department of Finance also knew something of this but seem to be claiming that they were unaware of the details.

This raises extremely serious questions about the oversight of our stock market and if true will hugely undermine national and international confidence in our system. This kind of behaviour will ruin the credibility of our institutions at a time when we need them at their strongest.

Our stock market regulation is a joke anyway before this.
Remember the Fyffes insider share dealing debacle.

Things are very cushy in Irish business circles and it is one big cirle jerk.
Nobody wants to rock the boat as everyone is on everyone elses board.
Do a board check and you keep finding familiar names cropping up.
There is even a cross over between private and public, with public bodies such as Aer Lingus (I know they are now private), DDDA, ESB being filled by cronies of the government.

I seem to remember Shane Ross (I think ???) complaining at Smurfit AGM a few years ago about dividends and share prices. He alluded to fact that major shareholders (i.e. the banks) were well represented on the board but did nothing for the smaller shareholders.

Now it appears there was complicity between two banks, Financial Regulators Office, Central Bank and Dept of Finance in affectively cooking the books, to all intense and purposes, and distorting the true financial standing of a financial institution.
Why the hell would any investor now touch an Irish financial company ?

Why should anyone put money into an Irish pension fund that will invaribly be invested in dear ould Irish companies run by a bunch of chancers and monitored by their buddies ?

Could an insurance fund take an action against some of the above parties for losses in Anglo ?

PS Of course I await stepbar's withering wit to counter the fact that to everyone bar bankers, these guys were cookling the books with their "lend us a deposit for a few days" scheme or "we give you money to buy our shares" scheme.
Of course they may have done nothing illegal in Ireland :rolleyes:

Dannyboy83

nesf wrote: »

A lot of people would but the problem is untangling what the different branches of the Government knew and then what they knew about what each other knew. It's entirely possible (depressingly so) that the Regulator could be off doing stuff that the Dept. of Finance was only tangentially aware of. Never mind what the Dept. of Finance had told Lenihan. The idea that Lenihan is aware of everything the Regulator, Central Bank and Dept. of Finance is up to is a fallacy I'm afraid.

Do you think we should show them what a wiki is mate?;)

We could revolutionise the Dept.:rolleyes:

nesf

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Do you think we should show them what a wiki is mate?;)

We could revolutionise the Dept.:rolleyes:

A wiki wouldn't work. The reasons should be obvious.

asdasd

the feeling what i am going to say wont be popular, but I think Lenihan is doing a good job on what he has been giving to work with..

didnt he find FitzPatrick's loan, something which was not obvious to the regulators, or the private auditors, even though this is not his field.

Lenihan may be not up to this daunting task but he is not corrupt, I think.

we need to triple the size of the Fraud Squad and get them to do their job.

Dannyboy83

nesf wrote: »

A wiki wouldn't work. The reasons should be obvious.

Enlighten me please bro.

BTW, if you're talking about one group of langers deleting info, thats the advantage of an iterated wiki, plus you could just give read permissions to most people.

nesf

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Enlighten me please bro.

BTW, if you're talking about one group of langers deleting info, thats the advantage of an iterated wiki, plus you could just give read permissions to most people.

The problems would come from when none of the three groups have access to all the information and are all editing the wiki simultaneously. Whose edits do you give the most credence to? From which combinations do you extrapolate further information from? There's also the problem of what do you share and what don't you, since large amounts of the business in each separate department is of no interest or use to the others but it's difficult to say a priori which is which.

stepbar

jmayo wrote: »

Our stock market regulation is a joke anyway before this.
Remember the Fyffes insider share dealing debacle.

Things are very cushy in Irish business circles and it is one big cirle jerk.
Nobody wants to rock the boat as everyone is on everyone elses board.
Do a board check and you keep finding familiar names cropping up.
There is even a cross over between private and public, with public bodies such as Aer Lingus (I know they are now private), DDDA, ESB being filled by cronies of the government.

I seem to remember Shane Ross (I think ???) complaining at Smurfit AGM a few years ago about dividends and share prices. He alluded to fact that major shareholders (i.e. the banks) were well represented on the board but did nothing for the smaller shareholders.

Now it appears there was complicity between two banks, Financial Regulators Office, Central Bank and Dept of Finance in affectively cooking the books, to all intense and purposes, and distorting the true financial standing of a financial institution.
Why the hell would any investor now touch an Irish financial company ?

Why should anyone put money into an Irish pension fund that will invaribly be invested in dear ould Irish companies run by a bunch of chancers and monitored by their buddies ?

Could an insurance fund take an action against some of the above parties for losses in Anglo ?

PS Of course I await stepbar's withering wit to counter the fact that to everyone bar bankers, these guys were cookling the books with their "lend us a deposit for a few days" scheme or "we give you money to buy our shares" scheme.
Of course they may have done nothing illegal in Ireland :rolleyes:

Nice rant there. When are you taking to the streets? Many joining you?.....

ejmaztec

I've been involved with many company audits over the years, and each firm of auditors has been worried to death should some official from a regulatory body examine the audit files and find something wrong.

The auditors would religiously check the files to make absolutely certain that a 100% job was done - and that they hadn't been hoodwinked by anyone.

It now seems after recent events that they needn't have bothered.

jmayo

ejmaztec wrote: »

I've been involved with many company audits over the years, and each firm of auditors has been worried to death should some official from a regulatory body examine the audit files and find something wrong.

The auditors would religiously check the files to make absolutely certain that a 100% job was done - and that they hadn't been hoodwinked by anyone.

It now seems after recent events that they needn't have bothered.

Oh no those rules would be enforced in most instances.
But there are certain protocols in Ireland which dictate who are subject to rules and regulations.
If you reach a certain status, it appears you are immune from such mundane things as rules and regulations.

Banks and bankers would have you believe that there are no loopholes and what they did was not wrong or illegal.
Funny how most independent financial analysts in this country and probably all those round the world would have different views.
But if we dare get angry at these people we are accused of ranting.

asdasd

Nice rant there. When are you taking to the streets? Many joining you?.....

Who needs the streets, not the irish way. any party that mentions an increase in resources for the fraud squad will get my vote.

stepbar

jmayo wrote: »

Oh no those rules would be enforced in most instances.
But there are certain protocols in Ireland which dictate who are subject to rules and regulations.
If you reach a certain status, it appears you are immune from such mundane things as rules and regulations.

Banks and bankers would have you believe that there are no loopholes and what they did was not wrong or illegal.
Funny how most independent financial analysts in this country and probably all those round the world would have different views.
But if we dare get angry at these people we are accused of ranting.

That's all you're doing buddy. Ranting.

Now go ahead and name one law for me like a good little boy.

Who needs the streets, not the irish way. any party that mentions an increase in resources for the fraud squad will get my vote.

LOL at the notion of the fraud squad. Just LOL.

asdasd

LOL at the notion of the fraud squad. Just LOL.

Laugh all the way to jail mate. This country is corrupt, but the tide is turning. Seriously. Lots of people are going to jail.

LOL at the self serving bankers still defending the indefensible.

SkepticOne

Relax, low level staff will probably escape scrutiny.

mike65

No one is going to jail unless the Youghart that passes for an enforcement culture in this country has changed overnight.

asdasd

Now go ahead and name one law for me like a good little boy.

There are no laws against deceiving shareholders? Who'd thunk it.

In any case we can bend existing laws, like criminal negligence. Doctors can be jailed for negligence, even if tired, even if there was no intent to kill or injure. An engineer can be jailed if a bridge collapses. Where there is intent to defraud, and/or negligence which brings down an entire financial system the case is easily made.

stepbar

asdasd wrote: »

Laugh all the way to jail mate. This country is corrupt, but the tide is turning. Seriously. Lots of people are going to jail.

LOL at the self serving bankers still defending the indefensible.

Sorry still laughing. Laughing Very Hard.

asdasd

No one is going to jail unless the Youghart that passes for an enforcement culture in this country has changed overnight.

Let me put it this way: my 62 year old mother, a Fianna Fail supporter all her life wants these muppets jailed and Fianna Fail out of office.

Just one party has to mention jail time, that we must increase resources to the police to investigate this white collar crime and it will shoot up 10%+ in the polls. The others will ahve to act tougher.

The next government will jail bankers.

asdasd

Sorry still laughing. Laughing Very Hard.

You can laugh at your buddies going to jail in a few years. Until then, I suggest just smirking a bit.

By the way doesnt the existance of Stepbar et al. put the lie to the "not all bankers were in it" nonsense. Banking seemed to attract a certain type.

holly1

stepbar wrote: »

Sorry still laughing. Laughing Very Hard.

Your day will come:p

stepbar

asdasd wrote: »

There are no laws against deceiving shareholders? Who'd thunk it.

In any case we can bend existing laws, like criminal negligence. Doctors can be jailed for negligence, even if tired, even if there was no intent to kill or injure. An engineer can be jailed if a bridge collapses. Where there is intent to defraud, and/or negligence which brings down an entire financial system the case is easily made.

O so now there was an intent to defraud, eh? Sure :rolleyes:

asdasd

O so now there was an intent to defraud, eh? Sure

Do read the thread title, or about FitzPatrick's dealings. In any criminal negligence wouldnt need intent.

Nodin

asdasd wrote: »

Laugh all the way to jail mate. This country is corrupt, but the tide is turning. Seriously. Lots of people are going to jail.

I'd like you to be right. However I gravely doubt that you are. 'Quality' people rarely do time. Thats not a conspiracy theory, just a fact.

Out of all the tribunals, and related revelations, for instance, how many did jail time?

stepbar

asdasd wrote: »

You can laugh at your buddies going to jail in a few years. Until then, I suggest just smirking a bit.

By the way doesnt the existance of Stepbar et al. put the lie to the "not all bankers were in it" nonsense. Banking seemed to attract a certain type.

Christ you love the generalisations, still talk lots yet say sfa. None of ye can tell me what exactly are "the bankers" going to be sent to jail for. Jeez I must have asked that question a hundred times and I still haven't got an answer or even close to an answer.

nesf

Lads there's far too much heat and not enough light in this thread. Quit sniping at each other please.

Dannyboy83

nesf wrote: »

The problems would come from when none of the three groups have access to all the information and are all editing the wiki simultaneously. Whose edits do you give the most credence to? From which combinations do you extrapolate further information from? There's also the problem of what do you share and what don't you, since large amounts of the business in each separate department is of no interest or use to the others but it's difficult to say a priori which is which.

All of those issues are very, very easily resolved.
Simple in fact.

For relevance, use pre-assigned permissions.
I could do this in 7 days.

Edits - you don't need to give credence or priority to anything.
This is what an iterative wiki is for mate.
Not sure if you have ever used Confluence, but you easily review any and all changes.

For all editing at the same thing - How do you think software developers work on projects mate?:rolleyes:
There are many ways around this.
Subversion almagamated into a central repository for one.

Dannyboy83

stepbar wrote: »

O so now there was an intent to defraud, eh? Sure :rolleyes:

Erm.................yes, LOL.
Do you keep up with current events at all mate?

Besides, it doesn't matter how it does or does not look to you.
You're 1 person.
To the international community and the people who invest their money here, it looks like collusion and fraud.

In the last 4 days: BBC, Bloomberg, Russia Today, CNN Internation, AlJazeera International, France 24

Unless we get some heads on sticks and get some type of regulation and quickly, we will be no regarded as no different than Venezula or Nicaragua or whatever.

I'm not saying its going to happen.
I'm not saying the people who deserve to be prosecuted will be.
I'm just saying they should be.

“Only little people pay taxes.” – Leona Helmsly

Dannyboy83

stepbar wrote: »

Christ you love the generalisations, still talk lots yet say sfa. None of ye can tell me what exactly are "the bankers" going to be sent to jail for. Jeez I must have asked that question a hundred times and I still haven't got an answer or even close to an answer.

Simple.

• Serious misconduct and Fraud
• Tax evasion
• Accounting Fruad
• Corporate Abuse
• Insider Trading (not saying who as I don't want to be up in court myself
• Unfair dismissal (there are probably a few more whistleblowers like this RBS chap)

Don't assume it stops at the top:
"Kevin P Hannon, 46, former chief operating officer for the broadband unit, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in August 2004 for scheming with other executives to exaggerate Enron's broadband network capabilities to impress analysts and inflate company stock."

Potential for serious action in the financial departments/Financial Regulator over collusion


If the Anglo shareholders sue the government (and rightly so), there will be a lot of angry taxpayers.
Perhaps then we will finally see some justice.

Dannyboy83

Nodin wrote: »

I'd like you to be right. However I gravely doubt that you are. 'Quality' people rarely do time. Thats not a conspiracy theory, just a fact.

Out of all the tribunals, and related revelations, for instance, how many did jail time?

Good point and one of my pet hates.
We have big expensive tribunals and fail to regulate/legislate against anything.

The thing is though, the likes of Bertie in Mahon -ethical grounds, and Charlie - pocket money [expenditure abuses are commonplace among government ministers nowadays as we saw with Willie O Dea spending 164,000 to go to Texas or Fas/Florida etc.].

Anglo Irish however - country on its knees, colossal public debt, whole system broken, seriously overleveraged, lies, collusion, corruption, Ireland going from 5th richest country to financial basket case of Europe and laughing stock of financial world.

Its like comparing a capgun and a nuclear bomb.

The world is waiting for action.
Ireland has to deliver.
It'll probably be some poor bas@rd from middle management when the scumbags on top buy their freedom.

asdasd

The thing is though, the likes of Bertie in Mahon

Someone gave Bertie a house. Not the same league as bankrupting the economy. When the tribunal gets off the gravy trains and produces a indictment it can go to the DPP for processing. Obviously the tribunals are a total waste of money, and the last thing we need is for more of that gravy train investigating the recent fraud.

Let the police look into it at least. We have a fraud squad. In fact close down the tribunals and let the police lose on the politicans with the existing evidence.

Dannyboy83

asdasd wrote: »

Someone gave Bertie a house. Not the same league as bankrupting the economy. When the tribunal gets off the gravy trains and produces a indictment it can go to the DPP for processing. Obviously the tribunals are a total waste of money, and the last thing we need is for more of that gravy train investigating the recent fraud.

Let the police look into it at least. We have a fraud squad. In fact close down the tribunals and let the police lose on the politicans with the existing evidence.

If you read the rest of my post, that was precisely my point.
Hence the cap gun/nuclear bomb analogy.

The tribunals haven't been a total waste of time, they've gotten back some amount of cash, disgraced a few knackers and made some legal bods exceedingly rich, both senior and junior.

The thing is, this is a criminal case, and needs criminal investigation.
Will it happen?
I hope so.
But I wouldn't hold my breath.

asdasd

stepbar wrote: »

Christ you love the generalisations, still talk lots yet say sfa. None of ye can tell me what exactly are "the bankers" going to be sent to jail for. Jeez I must have asked that question a hundred times and I still haven't got an answer or even close to an answer.

I gave the answers. Fraud. Negligence. And whatever else we can throw the book at them for. The junk bond traders in New York were not technically guilty of junk bond trading, Milkin et al., since it was not illegal. But they were jailed anyway.

All we need is RICO. Racketeering can be defined as you want it.

gnxx

In absolute and total agreement with this.

We have seen too many dodgy deals ranging from brown envelopes, inappropriate expense claims, directors loans and fraud.

Increase the headcount at CAB by 100% and investigate every single allegation made in the last 24 months. Jail and assert seizure to follow.

Personally I'd privatise CAB :-) Offer shares on the stock exchange !!

asdasd wrote: »

Someone gave Bertie a house. Not the same league as bankrupting the economy. When the tribunal gets off the gravy trains and produces a indictment it can go to the DPP for processing. Obviously the tribunals are a total waste of money, and the last thing we need is for more of that gravy train investigating the recent fraud.

Let the police look into it at least. We have a fraud squad. In fact close down the tribunals and let the police lose on the politicans with the existing evidence.

Dannyboy83

gnxx wrote: »

In absolute and total agreement with this.

We have seen too many dodgy deals ranging from brown envelopes, inappropriate expense claims, directors loans and fraud.

Increase the headcount at CAB by 100% and investigate every single allegation made in the last 24 months. Jail and assert seizure to follow.

Personally I'd privatise CAB :-) Offer shares on the stock exchange !!

The problem is that, with the likes of FitzPatrick, what he did was ethically wrong, but not criminally wrong (in this country, so far as I'm aware).

Sad state of affairs really.:(


The other shower are applicable for the CAB treatment tho.

Pub07

asdasd wrote: »

In any case we can bend existing laws, like criminal negligence. Doctors can be jailed for negligence, even if tired, even if there was no intent to kill or injure. An engineer can be jailed if a bridge collapses. Where there is intent to defraud, and/or negligence which brings down an entire financial system the case is easily made.

Yeah except this is not China where individual employees of organisations can be punished. No doctor or engineer in this country ever was or ever will be jailed for criminal negligence no matter how terrible their crime, example: Dr. Michael Neary. I dont see any of these current crowd of bankers getting charged much less getting some jail time. If this was the United States they would've been led out of their workplaces in the middle of the day with handcuffs on by now. HOW HAS THEIR NOT BEEN A F*CKING GARDA RAID ON THESE BANKS YET? Do they want to give them time to cover it all up or what?

Dannyboy83

Pub07 wrote: »

Yeah except this is not China where individual employees of organisations can be punished. No doctor or engineer in this country ever was or ever will be jailed for criminal negligence no matter how terrible their crime, example: Dr. Michael Neary. I dont see any of these current crowd of bankers getting charged much less getting some jail time. If this was the United States they would've been led out of their workplaces in the middle of the day with handcuffs on by now. HOW HAS THEIR NOT BEEN A F*CKING GARDA RAID ON THESE BANKS YET? Do they want to give them time to cover it all up or what?

Thats not actually correct, there have been a few cases.
Granted, its not the norm.
But not correct.
Off the top of my head, I don't recall the cases unfortunately.

I sympathise with your anger about the delay in investigation/prosecution.

I believe the answer to this is that there is much more destructive stuff still being hidden.
I can't really think of any other answer.

Pub07

You are saying a doctor/engineer has done time in Ireland for criminal neglegience? I cant recall one person getting jail time from the myriad of health scandals we've had in Ireland over the years.