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Banks Win Again As Judge Tosses Antitrust Claims In Libor Lawsuit
With all the recent chatter about an overhaul and dismantling of Too Big To Fail banks (spoiler alert: it will never happen, but it will take a lot of theater before that is made quite clear) many can be excused for believing the balance of power has shifted away from the megabanks (and their tens of trillions in over the counter derivative "weapons of mass financial destruction" so ably facilitating the Stockholm Syndrome of global mutual assured destruction with each passing day) and in the favor of the people, represented by the legislative (the same people who are multi-millionaires mostly courtesy of endless financial lobbying) and the judicial.
Last night we got a quick reminder that absolutely nothing has changed in the true lay of the land, that the adjusted golden rule is still in place (yes, the banks still have all the gold and set all the rules), and that banks are still the undisputed rulers of the land when U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald agreed to dismiss claims that the 16 banks targeted by various LIBOR lawsuits broke federal antitrust laws. In so ruling, the potential cost to the banks from an adverse overall resolution would be crippled. The ruling also is likely to reduce the financial inventive for new plaintiffs to join investors, cities, lenders and other parties that have already filed lawsuits.
In brief, the banks won again just when it mattered, just when it seemed they may, for once, be on the defensive, and just when the concept of accountability and responsibility for years of conspiratorial and criminal collusion to manipulate a rate impacting hundreds of trillions of IR-sensitive instruments, was about to rear its ugly head. Because in the New Normal crime and punishment is simply a book by Dostoyevsky.
What exactly did the Judge rule? Per the WSJ:
Judge Buchwald said her ruling was based on the conflicting legal arguments affecting the suits, rather than whether the underlying allegations of rate-rigging were true.
Regulators have alleged that executives and traders at certain banks tried to manipulate Libor to increase trading profits or improve the banks' image. Libor is calculated daily for different currencies based on estimated borrowing rates submitted by banks on panels. The lawsuits target banks on the panel used to work out U.S.-dollar rates under Libor.
Judge Buchwald ruled that the banks' alleged conduct didn't breach federal antitrust laws, partly because the Libor-setting process was a "cooperative endeavor" and "never intended to be competitive."
That means even if the banks did subvert the Libor process by putting in fake estimates, any losses suffered by investors and other plaintiffs would have resulted from the banks' "misrepresentation, not from harm to competition," the judge wrote.
In brief, according to (her interpretation of) US law, LIBOR-rigging isn't antitrust because by definition in an organized crime syndicate all the actors were in it together "cooperatively" and not to hurt each other.
Of course, that this is the whole point of colluding and conspiring in the process becoming the Libor market, is lost on the US Federal Judge. As is the point that for years and years it was this "cooperative endeavor" that allowed banks to reap tens if not hundreds of billions in direct and indirect profits.
As the WSJ concludes: "The ruling is a rare example of good news for the banking industry amid the escalating Libor scandal. The private litigation has ballooned as the probe escalated. Analysts have estimated the potential total bill to banks at anywhere from $7.8 billion to $176 billion." Feel free to mark it at the lower end now, if not lower. Because the last thing the criminal syndicate known as the global banking industry should be expected to do, is pay for its crimes, at least when following the legal codex it itself has been so instrumental in setting, courtesy of having long since taken over two of the three branches of government (if not all).
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The good news is Lanny Breuer's new job pays $4 million a year representing white collar criminals.
dancing with the stars is on!
"this will go a lot easier for you if you try and relax"
I need a Valium the size of a hockeypuck - Woody Allen, child molester and sometimes actor
Judge Naomi Buchwald also ruled against the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association in a suit against Monsanto. In her ruling against the seed growers she stated the litigation was a "transparent effort to create a controversy where none exists."
i think naomi might have a small point re: antitrust. why wasn't this stuff done as a fraud which it is: part of the largest and most dangerous control fraud in the planet's history.
Look, all I know is my bank has an app! And soon we can all spend money wirelessly without writing checks or swiping cards!
We may going to hell in a bucket, but at least we'll enjoy the ride!
"judge Naomi Reice Buchwald agreed to dismiss claims that the 16 banks targeted by various LIBOR lawsuits broke federal antitrust laws"
even so, they will *still* go bankrupt anyway
but at least it will happen later rather than sooner
and on a larger scale
thanks, nay-nay!
hugs, gmo'n'friends
Judge Buchwald made the right decision ... after all she has a husband and kids to think about.
Does she grab her ankles and take it dry too?
Jew judges ruling in favor of jew bankers & interests...
~~~
Quel surprise...
+100,000,000,000,000,000
FUCK YOU, BUCHWALD!!!
"A man can't ride your back unless it's bent." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Well, at least there's another name to add to the list of traitors.
Shocking, isn't it francis? /s
Yeah I know Buchwald is her married name, but looking at that pic something tells me she wasn't of the goyim crowd before she married...
Before some nimrod asks "what does this have to do with religion?" I ask what does the term 'antisemitic' or 'antisemite' have to do with religion? Thanks in advance for your cogent answers.
The law is an appendage of the banks. I don't have trust in either...
The big court case that didn't get ZH mention this week was Argentina lost their appeal against the bond holdout hedge fund.
Thanks for the news on Mr. Breuer WB, we were all worried about his job search after he told his prospective employers right before he left the Justice Dept. that he hadn't had the heart to prosecute them during his tenure becuase he was so worried about what might happen to the rest of us. The dear man.
And TD, sorry, I wasn't counting on the following anyway: " just when it seemed they (i.e., the banksters) may, for once, be on the defensive . . ."
Wake me when it's over.
All the world's a stage showing only reruns.
The Jews raped the Lady of Justice
AGAIN!
Her wikipaedia bio is interesting too.
Oh yes such as this interesting fact:
On February 24th, 2012, Judge Buchwald threw out a case brought by consortium of U.S. organic farmers and seed dealers concerned about Monsanto's Genetically Modified Organism seeds claiming the suit was a "transparent effort to create a controversy where none exists."The decision was appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 28, 2012
The Jews raped the Lady of Justice
Don't you have a village to burn somewhere?
Joo judge sides with Joo mafia.
Shocking, I tells ya. Shocking.
SHHHHHHHHHHHH, pointing out the obvious always attracts red arrows.
Do the Palestinians have a 2nd amendment?
Dude, we're ALL Palestineans now.
Wrong, the people who control the justice system are not Jewish.
and jews don't control finance. they don't control the media. there has certainly been not enough films about the holocaust and jews had nothing to do with 9/11. now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
you're doing yourself a disservice by not making yourself clear. while you might, down deep down, have a point, it makes you look like an idiot w/ comments like these:
wtf are you trying to say? that "they" are lucifer worshipping crypto-jews, using jews as their shield? or what? what is your point? spit it out!
the legal system is a construct... it gives the appearance of providing justice to the masses, when in reality, the big corporate interests always win in the end... we are slaves, but the current model is more a form of 'free range' slavery as opposed to the old model... actually works out better for the overlords for the most part...
in reality, the big corporate interests always win in the end
That's pretty well true, but the corps are the junior partners in the venture.
The real problem lies in people obeying the state. Think about it - the state takes half their money, continually, and yet they insist upon calling it righteous.
Corps are wannabes in comparison. They have their power mostly because of the state supporting and feeding them.
we are slaves, but the current model is more a form of 'free range' slavery as opposed to the old model... actually works out better for the overlords for the most part...
+1
This form of organized crime, and feudalism, is quite effective: Highly stable, and highly oppressive.
It's like the futuristic "prison-movies" where they merely put people into a walled-city or onto an island: They are still prisoners, but the "guards" have much less work to do.
For a person to "wake-up", he/she must understand: You own nothing, and you have no rights. Everything can be taken from you without due-process, and arbitrarily. As feudal subjects-to-the-king, you will pay tithe to the king (through property taxes and income taxes) every day, or the king will take all that you have.
You can own nothing, not even yourself. You rent everything from the king, including your perceived liberty.
Is that like being a free range chicken?
cage-free farm fresh?
Yes, all of the claims one can find on an expensive carton of eggs would apply, save the "hormone-free" bit...
"all of the claims..."
Like the claims their egg bearing chickens have been raised "naturally", vegetarian fed...lol...as if chickens are not birds that love to eat nice juicy worms and bugs, NATURALLY, but rather theirs are purportedly vegetarian by nature. Imbeciles.
Can i fornicate under his consent too?!
mikla, the only thing that is missing, imo, in this statement:
is to establish who the royal "You" is. i can only presume that you do know the difference between the flesh and blood "you" and the legal fiction "you"; because it is the legal fiction "you" that owns everything and is subject to the crown - with the implicit consent of the flesh and blood "you".
I accept your distinction:
However, as a practical concern, the State no longer distinguishes between the two, so the net result is the same:
For either, the State will violate my person and my home, and seize everything, without due process, and arbitrarily.
However, I also blame the State for not recognizing (2) (it is happy to pretend that (1) is all that exists), and for the State's illegal (and immoral) actions outside its standing. Technically, the State's illegal actions have removed its legitimate standing.
Largely, (and unfortunately), it is now a silly discussion: The State no longer exists. It is now merely the enforcement-arm for organized crime. There is no recourse for any persons that holds any legitimacy. So, ultimately, there are no agreements, and this is why there is no trust (and there can be no trust going forward).
Trust will begin again when we re-define the entities. The current entities, as currently defined-and-acknowledged, have no possibility of establishing anything resembling a social or legal contract (in the historic and legal sense).
Now, all persons can merely decide whether-or-not to comply with the mugger-in-the-alley on a case-by-case basis, because that's all that's going on anymore. The State is the "mugger", employing the (no-longer-legal) "use-of-force". However, we will all agree that the State's employment of force is effective (just not legal, nor moral).
thanks for making that distinction clear. i can see you've been down that road. personally, i've had some, but not outright, success in making that distinction, relying on charter, in court. judges do understand the diff btw the flesh and blood sovereign, the agent and administrator of the legal fiction - the creature of the state, but dare not to rule on it. in my case, the crown ended up dropping the charge rather than pursuing and establishing culpability.
Banks and multinationals rule the world, the rest is just windowdressing.
Step by step we are being prepared for the next totalitarian regimes, this time on a global scale.
Boiling the frog... and most frogs still feel nice and cosy.
What a surprise! Ok, it was not a surprise. We, the people, can not expect justice as Mr. Eric Holder has already told us that he will not prosecute banks as the banks may be damaged if he does. So that leaves YOU as the right size to prosecute for your petty crimes of hoarding food, growing food, raw milk consumption, smoking weed, etc. Oh, and FUCK YOU BERNANKE.
I smoke raw milk personally. Highly illegal uncut shit.
Dank kefir is dope.
Milk crack is wack.
Kefir's good shit, man.
The amazing thing is that we are still blaming individuals - like Holder is personally responsible for this whole mess. He is responsible for his part of the mess - the part he created and the part that he maintains.
But this machine has been running a very long time now. Karl Denninger had a Great piece on the origins of our current currency crisis(es) - going back to pre-Volker, when the South American banks totally screwed up and our idiot banksters (before there were "modern banksters" - post Anti-Trust) lost a bundle and the LAW WAS OVERLOOKED to bail them out.
Hence, the enormous fees for service by banks in the late seventies and eighties.
Karl's article is at this link. It makes the corruption clearly non-partisan.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=219086
The more harmful the addiction, the more it is rewarded in our society.
Didn't violate the anti trust laws because it was a trust by its very nature. Brilliant!
With the president and the judges on their side, the banks have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Just lacking that little thing known as Gun control?
Money = law.
Was there ever a time when this was not the case?
At least this time we got the four g's:
gold, guns, girls, and ganga
Money = law. Was there ever a time when this was not the case?
The short answer is yes, but it would require a long discussion.
You are basically correct, but the core of the issue is the legitimacy of the state, not wealth. (Even though wealth does work to get what you want from the state.)
What are you talking about.
Look at how wealth transformed law in the US:
The doctrine of laissez-faire, long considered the cloak for competition, is here seen as a shield for the newly rich. By the 1840s the overarching reach of the doctrine prevented further distribution of wealth and protected entrenched classes by disallowing the courts very much power to intervene in economic life.
--The Transformation of American Law
And even the Constitution, where the states who held slaves or great tracts of land gobbled up the state legislatures after it was ratified,
or even James Madison, who explicitly claims that the power of the gov is not in the hands of a single man, tyrant, or in the hands of the masses, but is given to the landowning males.
How is that complex?
You have evidently tied your self-opinion to these doctrines. I will not spend time trying to change your precious opinion.
Facts speak for themselves.
The greater the money, the greater the law.
Thats all Im saying. Ask Jamie Dimon if you dont believe me, or any of the other libor-rigging mofos.
On a Friday night, no less. What were we saying about the Cypriots being docile sheep?
Hey Cursive!
How many Friday nights before the unwinding of the 'derivitive death star'?
With all that is going on in Europe an the sudden burst of interest here in the US against TBTF, such as this most recent from WaPo:
Stop subsidizing Wall StreetBy Thomas M. Hoenig, Published: March 28
Thomas M. Hoenig is vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp
perhaps, the other shoe is falling----------------
Unwind the 'death star' just to see what happens????
The CBs have this capacity and a lot of people see 'debt forgiveness' as the answer----just an intuitive sense of reality from this side----no horse in this race--only an observer
Any thoughts on this?
@olto
The other shoe has been falling. The operative question is, "When will it hit the floor and TSHTF?" My thought process is much like ekm's (another poster here). TPTB are usually successful with their plans for concentration of power and confiscation of wealth, but even TPTB are not infallible. We are close to a major turning, but for good measure, I'll give myself plenty of margin for error and say 2015 (it could be next month, it could be later this year but I'm not Houdini). Whatever time you have left, put yourself in the proper mental state for the havoc that is surely coming. Family, friends, firearms and food.
@Cursive
Thanks for the warning, but my time is passed.
I am just curious to see how many will survive, and if anything will come of this species that has consumed itself.
It is really a beautiful planet and humans never did fit in------it was aways 'too late' for us----we just never adapted to life here.
Not only does Buchwald Suck as a judge she also Swallows.
...wait, wouldn't that be a good thing?
Fuck, we could use an army of unibombers now. I guess they would be called polybombers.
Too big to fail means too big to jail.
Thanks for that Mr Attorney General!
MERS CEO Hultman got smoked speaking before the Rhode Island General Assembly this past Tuesday.
House Committee on Corporations 3-26-2013 (Audio)
Audio begins at the 34 minute mark.
Hultman starts lying at the 40:48 minute mark.
Attorney George Babcock eats Hultman's lunch at the 51 minute mark.
Attorney Corey Allard finishes him off at the 59 minute mark.
Attorney John Ennis covers MERS' grave at the 63 minute mark.
Will it matter? Probably not, still very interesting.
[EDIT]
The attorney that beat up Hultman just uploaded this. I love it.
Law Dogs Weekly Video Blast - March 29, 2013
Judge must be long bank stocks in her 401k... Or have an offer to join the Vampire Squid as legal consultant...
Or a recently opened Cayman National Bank account, ACCT#
01010100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 01110011 00100000 01001010 01010000 01001101
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
It is at times like this that I am reminded that the "rule of law" is an illusion. Law is whatever judges say it is, and judges are just as biased and potentially corrupt as any politician. This is why the "free market" fantasy model of society where there is effectively no government other than judges who arbitrate private disputes (and presumably an armed police force who will enforce their judgments, for otherwise court orders would simply be ignored) is best left a fantasy.
Go banksters go!
Love those guys.
Just good people.
There is one error in this post. Yes, this will all collapse and the rule of bankers will end. I grew up behind the iron curtain. If you lived there ,the idea of a collapse of the soviet union seemed utterly laughable. And then it did not. The problem of modern banking is that it is economically parasitic, inefficient, and is ultimately strangling the real economy. The process of strangling progresses in fits and starts, as it did behind the iron curtain. The process of deterioration was not linear, it had its rays of hope. What can not go on, will not.
I hope you're right but fear you're not.
As Tyler pointed out that, "With all the recent chatter about an overhaul and dismantling of Too Big To Fail banks (spoiler alert: it will never happen ...."
TBTF banks makes for one stop shopping when it's time to pick up the campaign contributions.
Score:
Bankers 1
Military 0
There are a lot more battles to go. Even Jack Welch's wife is getting involved.
Tweet: JP Morgan being investigated by eight federal agencies. Eight. Tell me that's not a vendetta.
https://twitter.com/SuzyWelch/status/317008469859377152
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/jpmorgan-chase-faces-full-court-press-of-federal-investigations/
This is civil war inside the government, IMO. Has anybody noticed that Obama has almost disappeared since Bob Woodward (military's man) attacked him?
Ah:
– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
I know patience is wearing thin, but just look at the big picture- they are burning themselves down and the flames are licking at their ass. Hang on bitchez...
Martin Armstrong has stated time and again, the NY courts will not rule against the TBTF banks in NY.
Hahaha. You guys gals make me laugh in these sad times..
It is mathematically certain that we will collapse. Chaos theory predicts it with certainty. And the FOMC and LOTUS knows it very well through their think tanks. So does Stephen Hawkins and said so in his last public conference. The key is not that, since we also know that it is impossible to predict with any accuracy WHEN it will happen. The key, like all chess players here know, lies in how do you position yourself for that moment. Example to get away from the value depreciation of our USD China was allowed to get a humongous capital appreciation on their US Treasury holdings and to afterwards sell them to the Federal Reserve, something somehow everybody forgets to mention. Well now the big guys are being given the opportunity to make it big in the US stock market. From 2011 to 2013 and with really bad worlwide macroeconomic news in the middle the S&P500 went from around 1000 to more than 1500 a 50% gain. So who would loose if they took a 50% cut? Easy, only those who didnt get the fake 50% gain. And who else other than those who actually play the music will know when it will stop?
Until next time,
Engineer
Whoever lives nearby the so-called Judge should start protesting legally in a place where she can see the obvious
displeasure we the people have with her corruption. IOW, bring the heat....Obama did, Jesse Jackson did.
So, given that the judge does not see it as an antitrust issue, did she, within her justification for this ruling, just outline the proper path as RICO? From the article these statutes seem to fit her rationalization perfectly.
The banks run the country and the judiciary when they need it.
So cooperative crime is trustworthy?
Equivocation is being lifted to an artform by the modern judicial branch of government.
SCOTUS (and J. Roberts!) lead the way!
I like the derivatives = cold war comparison. I've tried to speak to folks about how dangerous derivatives are, but always end up getting blank stares. The cold war is something most Americans thirty or older vaguely understand. Maybe I'll try this next time:
The banks are like the US, they are building an arsenal of weapons called derivatives. The Soviet Union is played by world governments, trying to keep up, but so greatly out matched that they are bound to fail. Now the banks arsenal is so emense and complex, and the governments are so corrupt and bankrupt, that only a collapse is possible.
The supreme laws of the land can be summarized by flipping a coin - Heads the 1% win, Tails the 99% lose....
On the other hand, every dog has his day...
Typical Judge.
Here is another one, bangin' in the backroom:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301520/Shirtless-judge-admits-having-s...
Martin Armstrong has written many times that no NY judge will rule against a major bank. What happened to the NY Mellon case?
Naomi Reice Buchwald= Another Empty Kitchen. Sad really. Female Judges should be Felt, not Heard.
Any securities lawyers free to look at GOFO now that LIBOR has been cut and shut?
Gold Forward Offered Rate. Fixed at 11am in London each market day.
8 banks submit rates via a Reuters page but the GOFO is calculated by the LBMA.
The 8 banks are (if you can visualize a Venn Diagram): the 5 gold price fixing members interaection the 6 clearing members intersection Goldman Sachs....specifically Barclays, Deutsche, UBS, HSBC, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Soc Gen and Scotia Mocatta.
These fine institutions wouldn't rig a reference rate surely?
At least 6 submissions are needed. High and low submission are disgarded. Daily calculated rate is average of the rest.
At least in LIBOR Reuters were contracted to do the calculation. In GOFO the same companies that submit the rates actually calculate the GOFO since the LBMA is basically the large market makers/fixing members/clearers.
So, who is going to do an independent investigation of GOFO, and don't say the Bank of England or the FSA....
By the judge's logic, MAFIA may be OK doing what they do: they never intend to obey the law, so they never broke any law.
Whoever on the 'counterparty' side of libor related trades only have GAAP accounting to help them from their investors.
ha ha ha just another victory of "democracy"
Judge Buchwald ruled that the banks' alleged conduct didn't breach federal antitrust laws, partly because the Libor-setting process was a "cooperative endeavor" and "never intended to be competitive.
That is obscenely tortured logic. While the SCOTUS sophisticates the simplest discussion to the point of an expedient conceit, other Courts paint it in common-sense retardant.
A "cooperative endeavor" is at the heart of the definition of a "Trust". Historically, these endeavors are allowed to exist, right up to the moment that self-beneficial collusion becomes obvious.
The preponderance of evidence that co-conspiracy was afoot is undeniable. The horse has left the barn that this was not some laboratory double-blind, independent voting process, netting out the LIBOR rate. It was fucking dirtbags in almost continual discussion and co-operation.
I don't know how/why the LIBOR process was created, but it was/is a pesthole ripe for price-fixing in its most vulgar form.
yevtushenko - stolen apples is good too..amazing how literature penned during a massively oppressive regime comes back into vogue during a ...er...lightly supportive democracy...wait ...is that double entendre, irony or sattire?
try this one out...
LIBOR is an indicative (estimated) rate for one of 32 London based banks borrowing from another London based bank of similar standing for a normal market size. and is sourced from 24-32 competing banks...trouble is, the competing banks are setting rates for 1 quadrillion worth of derivatives that reference LIBOR. Normal market size in the LIBOR instance would be 50-100 million us dollars worth of any of 25 or so currencies
LIBOR is set for money market rates for a whole bunch of currencies going out to 18 months. Then you have swap rates with terms from 1 year to 50 years, with the most liquid swaps being 3, 5 and ten with pension funds playing in the longer dated swaps (nominal and inflation).
The correct question in these days of stress tests and TBTF/J would be "what LIBOR rate would you set that would not result in the failure of your bank?"
I stress that these banks are based in London and the US has no jurisdiction over them or their activities. The fines levied in the US (ten times the size of fines levied in the UK) are in fact illegal. LIBOR setting has nothing to do with the US.
The USE OF LIBOR by US banks (not British banks) is where the crime has been committed, provided it can be shown that US banks used a cartel for price fixing. This is as much about the competence of the lawyers drawing up all the contracts that reference LIBOR for use in the US.
The general premise is that UK banks are not competing but who are profiting and losing from the activities of the banks...the banks were regulated by the British Bankers Association (not any club of American bankers) and UK government appointed entities like the UK Financial Services Authority..so the real fault of LIBOR is that the regulators appointed by the UK (via a democratic process) condoned the activities of the banks.
The judge is right for the wrong reasons.
The Law is an Ass and justice is truly blind.
Spartacus says that "opinions (including legal ones) are like assholes, everyone has them and they all smell"
Read more about Judge Buchwalk at wikipedia. She threw out a case brought by organic growers against Monsanto saying they were tyring "to create a contraversy where none existed". We're all making stuff up in our little conspiracy minds according to Judge Ramboa Buchenwald...
...Or, this judge is part of the 'syndicate' herself....which is probably the case.
Let's see if I got this right, according to the judge's ruling bid rigging, being a cooperative effort among the bidders, is fine. This should be a boon to all those construction companies bidding on projects. They can assure themselves that no one gets hurt by bidding a job too low.
We can now add the FTC to our list of superfulous government agencies.