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Fraud*
According to the Collins English Dictionary 10th Edition fraud can be defined as: "deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage".[1] In the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent "discoveries", e.g. in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain
*As defined in Wikipedia

Friday, October 29, 2010

Protecting Goldman Sachs's Dirty Little Secrets

If all hedge funds and investment banks played by the same rules, there would be no need to protect banks that have secrets. The idea that a bank that has siphoned billions of dollars from pensions, savings and homeowners over the past years can be "re-victimized" is a ludicrous notion. Goldman is not a victim and never has been. Let's have a level playing field, Goldman Sachs!

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 27, 2010

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prosecutors asked a federal judge to seal the courtroom for part of the upcoming criminal trial of a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc computer programer, an effort to protect the secrecy of the bank's high-frequency trading platform.

Prosecutors said in a court filing that there is a "compelling interest in favor of privacy" for Goldman in the trial of the former employee, Sergey Aleynikov.

They cited a federal law to protect owners of trade secrets and a desire not to cause the investment bank to be "re-victimized" through the release of confidential, proprietary trading secrets.

"Any public disclosure of a trade secret poses the substantial risk that the trade secret's value to its owner will be significantly diminished, if not destroyed outright," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti wrote.

Aleynikov is accused of stealing Goldman's computer code. He is set to go on trial on November 29 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on two charges alleging theft of trade secrets and transportation of stolen property in interstate commerce.

A third charge alleging unauthorized computer access was dismissed last month. Aleynikov has pleaded not guilty.

Goldman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the request to seal the Manhattan federal courtroom.

It is common for parties to request the closure of courtrooms when proprietary secrets or sensitive information might otherwise be disclosed publicly.

Aleynikov is accused of improperly downloading Goldman code to an outside server on June 5, 2009, his last day working at the company.

The government contends he later took a laptop containing code and another storage device to his new employer, Teza Technologies LLC, a high-frequency trading start-up in Chicago.

Aleynikov was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport on July 3, 2009. Teza later suspended him.

The defense has been seeking access to Goldman's trading system, including source code.

In a separate Monday filing, defense lawyer Kevin Marino said this access is necessary to help Aleynikov show "the materials he is alleged to have stolen do not constitute a trade secret, and he did not and could not have intended to injure Goldman by taking those materials."

Aleynikov was 40 at the time of his February 2010 indictment.

Read the article here


5 COMMENTS:

Anonymous said...

On Wall Street: All Reward, No Risk



Now, after six years of writing about Wall Street — including two lengthy books — I remain at a total loss to explain the pay phenomenon. What’s worse, even the most modest sleights when it comes to pay on Wall Street — “The guy next to me got a $2 million bonus, why did I only get $1.9 million?!” — is enough to reduce someone to tears. Indeed, I have yet to encounter a person on Wall Street who can, with a straight face, justify his compensation on other than the most painfully tone-deaf grounds, usually along the lines of how they “add value” for their clients.

The Wall Street Journal recently estimated that Wall Street bonuses in 2010 will total $144 billion, in a year that has been less than stellar for most banks. Goldman Sachs has set aside $13.1 billion in bonuses for its approximately 35,000 employees, an average of $370,000 per person, which completely ignores the fact that people at the top of Goldman’s golden pyramid get paid millions of dollars annually while those at the bottom do not. (In 2007, the three top executives at Goldman split around $200 million.) Goldman’s accrued bonuses for the first nine months of the year equaled 43 percent of its revenue and were down from the $16.7 billion that the firm accrued in 2009, or 47 percent of its revenue. (In a nod to the political gales blowing in its direction, Goldman accrued nothing for bonuses in the final quarter of 2009.)

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/on-wall-street-all-reward-no-risk/

Larry Rubinoff said...

All gain with no risk. A different set of rules and laws for the "elite" class of our once classless society called a democratic republic.

A country gone wild at the expense of its people.

Now secret hearings. Why? Is it for national seurity reasons? No. If it is to keep th epublic form knowing how companies like GS illegally manipulate the markets for their own benefits, the public needs to see, hear and know.

If indeed, criminal actions are taking place on Wall Streetand I for one think there are, making the information public may put an end to that practice. Perhaps by making the information public the people - you and me - will DEMAND that this practice be stopped and those responsible be PROSECUTED not just fined.

Make the CEO's responsible for the actioins of their people. They all know right from wrong and also have some very high paid legal experts that are paid to let them know right from wrong. There are no excuses for criminal actions AND there should be no excuses for those committing crimes or allowing crimes to be commited on their watch form going to prison.

Madoff should have plenty of company.

Joyce, thank you again for the great job you are doing here at GS666.com.

Larry
Publisher and Editor

Anonymous said...

They don't even pay their own fines...they get indemnified by their company's and D&O insurance...

Untangling The Complex Foreclosure Mess

Gretchen Morgenson has a fantastic interview and article over at NPR.

http://fedupusa.org/2010/10/28/untangling-the-complex-foreclosure-mess/

Anonymous said...

Everything's a big secret!

The Fed Bought Fraud


In the wake of the financial meltdown of 2008, the Federal Reserve announced it would buy mortgage-backed securities, or MBS. The January announcement by the Fed said it would buy MBS from failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the amount of $1.25 trillion. At the time, the Fed said in a press release, “The goal of the program was to provide support to mortgage and housing markets and to foster improved conditions in financial markets more generally.” (Click here for the full Fed statement.) It did provide “support” to the mortgage market, but did it also buy fraud and cover the banks that sold it? The evidence shows, at the very least, it bought massive amounts of fraud.

Could the Federal Reserve have bought that amount of fraudulent MBS and not have known it? Could the Fed have been buying that amount of rotten worthless debt to cover the banksters in the syndicate? Who knows if we will ever find that out because the Federal Reserve cannot be independently audited. And who knows what else it bought in sour debt to bail out their banking syndicate buddies because the Federal Reserve cannot be independently audited! It has never been audited in its 97 year history. I know one thing, if the Fed is going to keep its banking cartel alive, it is going to be forced to print massive amounts of money out of thin air to buy a heck of a lot more fraudulent mortgage-backed securities.

http://usawatchdog.com/the-fed-bought-mortgage-fraud/

JR said...

Commenting on the "The Fed Bought Fraud" comment, I remember when Paulson stood before the press and talked about buying up all the toxic assets with the TARP funds. He never put the bailout in quite those terms again, but I believe that it was exactly what he did and that might be why we will never really know how much of the toxin was outright fraud. I believe most of it was fraud based on what he said.

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