Gedink
Suid-Afrika is vrot van korrupsie?
Ek het nog
nooit onder die illusie geleef nie. Daarvoor sorg nuus vanuit die buiteland.
‘n Mens wat
die internasionale media volg, kan nie anders as om verslae te staan hoe korrup
die besigheidswêreld is nie. In die rykste en mees ontwikkelde lande van die
wêreld, is die gierigste mense op die mees ondenkbare obsene maniere besig om
hulself ten koste van ander, goedgelowige mense te verryk. En dit is nie net
een of twee mense wat van die spoor afgedwaal het nie. Soms lyk dit of netwerke
van korrupte persone besig is met hul bedrog.
Byvoorbeeld:
Gister is die agste persoon net van net een firma in Manhattan skuldig bevind
weens korrupsie van drie miljard rand (sien berig hier onder). Die berig vertel
hoe hy reeds as student skelm was. In een jaar het hy ‘n miljard rand bonus
verdien.
En: in
Ierland is drie senior bankamptenare onlangs vir korrupsie van 7.2 miljard euro
verhoor. In Ysland word 200 mense
(o.a. die direkteure van die grootste drie banke) van kriminele oortredings
aangekla. In die voorste van voor lande, Nederland, het een van die mees gerespekteerde
banke ‘n boete van 774 miljoen euro as skulderkenning van korrupsie betaal. Die eposse
wat die amptenare van hierdie bank oor hul onwettige aktiwiteite geskryf het,
is verby obseniteit en hartverskeurend in hul gewetenloosheid (sien berig hier onder). In Iran is vier
senior bankiers vir hul korrupte aktiwiteit die doodstraf opgelê (ook 'n berig hier onder).
Gedink
Suid-Afrika (en Nigerië) is vrot van korrupsie?
Hier is ‘n
paar voorbeelde van die geestelike bankrotskap wat in alle wêrelddele, ook die
mees beskaafde lande, aangaan.
As ‘n mens
‘n indruk wil kry in hoe erg dit is, begin ‘n mens by:
Amerika:
Mathew Martoma had been on his way
to being another American success story. Today, he is the eighth person who
once worked for the hedge fund titan Steven A. Cohen to be convicted of insider
trading.
A federal jury in Manhattan on
Thursday found Mr. Martoma guilty of seeking out confidential information
related to a clinical trial for an experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease —
information that enabled Mr. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors to earn $275 million.
Until his arrest in November 2012,
Mr. Martoma had seemingly checked off all the boxes on the path to success. At
SAC, he earned a $9.3 million bonus in 2008, which enabled him and his wife to
buy a $1.9 million home in Boca Raton, Fla., for themselves and their three
young children.
But much of Mr. Martoma’s adult
life was checkered with cheating.
In
1999, he was kicked out of Harvard for doctoring his law school transcript to try to gain a federal
clerkship. Soon after, he changed his name from Ajai Mathew Thomas and was
admitted to Stanford, where officials were apparently unaware that Mr. Martoma
had been expelled from Harvard. His deception at Harvard remained a secret for
years, even among those who worked alongside him at SAC.
IERLAND
18 DECEMBER 2013
THE former chief executive
of Irish Life & Permanent has been charged in relation to an alleged €7.2bn
fraud.
Denis Casey is the second
most senior bank executive after former Anglo CEO Sean FitzPatrick, to face
criminal charges in the wake of the financial crisis.
These
charges are not in any way related to the charges Mr FitzPatrick and two former
Anglo executives face at a separate trial to be held next year.
Mr Casey, who has just
qualified as a junior barrister, was charged yesterday (WED) along with two
former bankers - IL&P’s former finance director Peter Fitzpatrick and the
former head of treasury at Anglo Irish Bank John Bowe - with conspiracy to
defraud investors and depositors under common law.
The
men are to stand trial accused conspiring to mislead Anglo Irish Bank investors
in relation to €7.2 billion transactions.
Instead
of kicking the can and maintaining the zombie nation, Iceland ripped its
over-levered bank-based-debacle band-aid off and has slowly but surely emerged
from its own crisis (notwithstanding capital controls and pain for many) unlike
the rest of the Western world which has reverted to the mean of ignorance and
status quo. Now, however, The Guardian reports Iceland has
one more lesson to teach the world - an Icelandic court has sentenced four
former Kaupthing bankers to jail for market abuses. Via The
Guardian, An Icelandic court has sentenced
four former Kaupthing bankers to jail for market abuses related to a large
stake taken in the bank by a Qatari sheikh just before it went under in late
2008. Weeks before the country's top three banks collapsed under
huge debts as the global credit crunch struck, Kaupthing announced that Sheikh
Mohammed bin Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani had bought 5 of its shares in a
confidence-boosting move. A parliamentary commission later said the
shares had been bought with a loan from Kaupthing itself. On Thursday, a Reykjavik district court
sentenced Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, Kaupthing's former chief executive, to five
and a half years in prison while former chairman Sigurdur Einarsson received a
five-year sentence. Magnus Gudmundsson, former chief executive of
Kaupthing Luxembourg, was given a three-year sentence and Olafur Olafsson – the
bank's second largest shareholder at the time – received three and a half
years. In what is by far the
largest case brought by Iceland's special prosecutor against former employees
of Iceland's failed banks, it was argued that the market had been deceived by
information indicating that financing was coming directly from Al Thani's own
funds. Instead of fining the
banks (in nothing more than a cost-of-doing-business line item), there are real
consequences for the actors involved...
YSLAND
Iceland’s special
prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200,
including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal
charges.
Larus Welding, the
former CEO of Glitnir Bank hf, once Iceland’s second biggest, was indicted in
December for granting illegal loans and is now waiting to stand trial. The
former CEO of Landsbanki Islands hf, Sigurjon Arnason, has endured stints of
solitary confinement as his criminal investigation continues.
NEDERLAND
Liborhoer
Een medewerker die een
collega te hulp schoot bij het manipuleren van de London Interbank Offered Rate
(Libor-rente, een dagelijks bepaalde bankrente bij onderlinge leningen) mailde
bijvoorbeeld als Libor-bitch (Liborhoer) te dienen.
“Maak je geen zorgen,
er zijn ergere oplichters dan wij”, e-mailde een medewerker na akkoord te zijn
gegaan met het opdrijven van de vast te leggen waarde van de Japanse yen.
Collega’s van andere banken
Uit de e-mails die de
Amerikaanse en Britse autoriteiten openbaar hebben gemaakt, blijkt dat de
medewerkers niet alleen met collega’s bij de Rabobank spraken, maar ook met collega’s bij andere banken.
Ook uit deze mails komt
een beeld naar voren dat er openlijk en veelal grappend over de manipulatie
werd gesproken en dat er weinig ethische scrupules bij de handelaren en
rente-medewerkers leken te bestaan. “Aah… mijn arme klanten”, schreef een
handelaar nadat hem was meegedeeld dat een collega een “obsceen hoog” tarief
zou indienen.
De manipulatie gebeurde
veelal in de vorm van een dienst of wederdienst en werd vaak ook als zodanig
aangemerkt. “Het helpt altijd om een paar vrienden op de markt te hebben”,
aldus een voormalige Rabobank-medewerker.
Al met al blijkt uit de honderden berichten dat Rabohandelaren
zonder enige scrupules de boel jarenlang beduvelden voor eigen gewin. Het
resulteerde in een boete van 774
miljoen euro voor de
bank met ideeën. Bestuursvoorzitter Moerland besloot naar aanleiding van het
schandaal zelfs af te treden.
IRAN
A TEHRAN COURT has
sentenced to death four people convicted in Iran’s biggest-ever banking
scandal, according to the national chief prosecutor on Monday, quoted by the
official news agency IRNA.
The sentences came at the end of a trial of 39 suspects that
started in February. The magnitude of the scandal was estimated at $2.6 billion
when it came to light in September last year.
