Author's posts
Jul 13 2012
RICO Money Laundering
Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Because LIBOR Investor Fraud is so yesterday.
HSBC Reveals Problems With Internal Controls
By LANDON THOMAS JR. and MARK SCOTT, The New York Tmes
July 12, 2012
The money laundering, which a U.S. Senate subcommittee indicates was linked to terrorism and drug deals, could result in HSBC’s paying fines of up to $1 billion, according to analysts.
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In the case of the money laundering, the U.S. authorities have been examining HSBC for several years. On Tuesday, officials from the bank are set to testify in Washington before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. A subcommittee spokesman declined on Thursday to discuss the investigation, but the panel’s Web site describes the agenda: “a hearing on the money laundering and terrorist financing vulnerabilities created when a global bank uses its U.S. affiliate to provide U.S. dollars, U.S. dollar services, and access to the U.S. financial system to high risk affiliates, high risk correspondent banks, and high risk clients, using HSBC as a case study.”
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Adding another political wrinkle: HSBC’s former chairman, Stephen Green, who was in office from 2006 to 2010 when many of the money-laundering detection problems occurred, is currently the trade minister in British prime minister David Cameron’s government. Mr. Green’s office did not reply to a request for comment on Thursday.
HSBC braced for huge U.S. penalty
By Sharlene Goff, Financial Times
July 12, 2012
HSBC is to apologise to US lawmakers for failing to have appropriate controls in place to ensure it did not facilitate the financing of terrorism and other criminal activities, transgressions that analysts estimate may cost it up to $1bn in fines.
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Mr Gulliver warned that HSBC was likely to face further action from other US authorities in coming months.HSBC said in its 2011 annual report that fines relating to money laundering issues could be “significant”. There has been speculation among analysts that the bank could be hit with a higher charge than the $619m ING, the Dutch bank, agreed to pay to settle accusations it violated US sanctions by helping Iranian and Cuban companies move billions of dollars through the US financial system. Some have suggested it could be as much as $1bn.
HSBC chief admits bank failed to control money laundering
Dominic Rushe, The Guardian
Wednesday 11 July 2012
In the memo, first reported by Bloomberg News, Gulliver said the hearing would “reveal that in the past we fell well short of the standards that our regulators, customers and investors expect”. He said: “It is right that we be held accountable and that we take responsibility for fixing what went wrong.”
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Last month ING, the Dutch bank, paid $619m to settle accusations it helped Iranian and Cuban companies move billions of dollars through the US financial system in violation of US sanctions. Some analysts have suggested HSBC’s fine could be far higher.
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William Black, professor of economics and law at University of Missouri Kansas City, said: “There is a theme developing in Washington that the City of London is evil, that it has a corrupt culture.”He said that while the view might not be fair, the JP Morgan scandal, Libor and now HSBC meant it was a theme that was likely to be developed. “We like to blame someone else,” he said.
Jul 11 2012
What is a War Crime?
Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Former Congo warlord sentenced to 14 years over child soldiers
Los Angeles Times
July 10, 2012
Former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga was ordered to spend 14 years in prison Tuesday for enlisting children as soldiers, the first sentence handed down by the decade-old International Criminal Court.
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Six years will be deducted from Lubanga’s sentence to cover the time since he first surrendered to the court, aggravating critics who called the sentence too light.
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The March verdict was hailed by human rights groups as a key step toward bringing war criminals to justice. Though other tribunals have been created throughout history to punish atrocities from specific conflicts, Lubanga was the first person to be convicted and sentenced by the International Criminal Court, created a decade ago to address war crimes in places where local courts are unable or unwilling to act.
Jul 09 2012
Digital Developments
Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
European parliament rejects anti-piracy treaty
Eric Pfanner, Business Standard
Jul 06, 2012
Foes of the treaty said the vote, by an overwhelming margin in the European Parliament at Strasbourg, would probably end the prospects of European involvement in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, which has been signed by the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea and a number of individual EU members.
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The vote was not even close, with 478 members of Parliament opposing the treaty, only 39 supporting it and 146 abstaining, yet it leaves considerable uncertainty. Under EU law, the treaty cannot go into effect without the Parliament’s endorsement.“It’s a crushing victory,” said Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesman for La Quadrature du Net, a group in Paris that was active in the treaty protests. “It’s a political symbol on an enormous scale, in which citizens of the world, connected by the internet, have managed to defeat these powerful, entrenched industries.”
The legality of second hand software sales in the EU
by Jas Purewal, Gamer Law
Posted on 3.7.12
The second hand sale of physical and digital software has effectively been declared legal, according to a judgment published by the Court of Justice of the European Union today. This has the potential to have a real impact on the way that software is sold and consumed – but at the same time the case raises more questions than it answers, so we’re really not in a clear cut situation at all.
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Essentially, the court held that, under EU law, the right of software developers to control distribution of a piece of software – whether stored physically or digitally – is “exhausted” (i.e. lost) once the developer has been paid for it (known as a “first sale“). This means that developers lose the ability to prohibit any second hand sale.However, if a second hand sale goes ahead then the first purchaser must stop using her copy of the software and render it unusable, because the developer’s right to control reproduction of software is not exhausted on a second hand sale. In order to make sure that the first purchaser stops using the software she has sold on, it is permissible for the software developer to use “technical protective measures such as product keys“.
(h/t Ian Welsh)
Verizon Playing Dangerous Game in Net Neutrality Battle
By Tony Bradley, PCWorld
Jul 3, 2012 5:13 pm
This time around, Verizon is playing the First Amendment card. The challenge, essentially, is that by limiting Verizon’s ability to choose which content to block or promote, the FCC is infringing on Verizon’s right to free speech.
There are a couple major flaws in the argument. First, an individual’s right to free speech shouldn’t apply equally to a corporation.
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Second, the FCC net neutrality rules don’t actually inhibit an ISP’s ability to express itself freely. Under the FCC rules, Verizon is free to publish whatever content it chooses–it simply can’t block or discriminate against other content as a matter of business practice.The fact of the matter is the vast majority of the data traversing the ISP’s network (like Verizon) doesn’t belong to the ISP in the first place. An argument could be made that by throttling or blocking traffic Verizon is actually the party guilty of stepping on the First Amendment rights of others.
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Part of the underlying problem is the fact that the major ISPs are also content providers. Verizon has a vested interest in preventing Netflix traffic because it has its own streaming entertainment services. Comcast is owned by NBC, so it could gain a strategic advantage for its own content by throttling the bandwidth for rival networks. The simple solution is for Congress to impose regulations banning ISPs from delivering their own content, or being owned by companies that publish or deliver content.If the net neutrality rules suggested by the FCC to keep the Internet fair and open to all seem too draconian for Verizon, perhaps the problem is that Verizon the ISP needs to be separated from Verizon the cable TV provider, or Verizon the wireless broadband provider, or Verizon the VoIP (voice over IP) phone provider.
Jul 08 2012
Movie Matinee
Not quite sure what led Taylor Marsh to find this, but it’s one of TheMomCat’s favorite movies.