JPMorgan, Lehman, UBS Named as Conspirators in Muni Bid-Rigging

Source: Bloomberg

JPMorgan, Lehman, UBS Named as Conspirators in Muni Bid-Rigging
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By William Selway and Martin Z. Braun

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.

A government list of previously unidentified “co- conspirators” contains more than two dozen bankers at firms also including Bank of America Corp., Bear Stearns Cos., Societe Generale, two of General Electric Co.’s financial businesses and Salomon Smith Barney, the former unit of Citigroup Inc., according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24. The papers were filed by attorneys for a former employee of CDR Financial Products Inc., an advisory firm indicted in October. The attorneys, as part of their legal filing, identified the roster as being provided by the government. The document is labeled “list of co-conspirators.”

None of the firms or individuals named on the list has been charged with wrongdoing. The court records mark the first time these companies have been identified as co-conspirators. They provide the broadest look yet at alleged collusion in the $2.8 trillion municipal securities market that the government says delivered profits to Wall Street at taxpayers’ expense.

‘Sufficient Evidence’

"If the government is saying they are co-conspirators, the government believes they have sufficient evidence that they can show they were part of the conspiracy," said Richard Donovan, a partner at New York-based law firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP and co-chair of its antitrust practice. Donovan isn't involved in the case.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anW3hAG0Zw5k&pos=1

big players in the cash for ratings game that totally skewed all the markets and set us up for collapse.

They also need to nail Chris Cox's butt to a chair in front of Congress until he coughs up all the names of people who ordered him to lay off doing his job at the SEC for eight years.

It's going to take a very long time to get the stink out of the financial sector. They're just opening the window a crack now.

THESE ARE THE BAD GUYS! They have effectively picked the pocket of every taxpayer in America - as have the asshats who sold derivatives to municipalities as ultra-safe investments. There should be no dignity for these losers - they should be treated the same way the cops treat a shotgun bandit who knocks over liquor stores! Faces ground into their expensive carpet, cuffed and stuffed into a paddy wagon, arraigned in night court, jailed at the Tombs on high cash bail.

That will help the local and State governments pay their bills.

AND YET THESE co-conspirators in a conspiracy that fucked your state and taxpayers..are sitting on their yachts and in their mansions and beach homes!!

I know that for fact ..because one of my former neighbors is the #4 guy at UBS..he is definitely enjoying his new mansion and his mansion beach home!!

But don't worry your little self..Obama will hold none of them accountable..and believe me..they know it..

My formwer neighbor was a giant Bush fan..and a rabid Republican..oh he bragged about it and slimed me every way possible because i was DEMOCRAT...he and others in the neighborhood even went so far as to put republican signs in my yard when i was away at work..this darling man ( note sarcasm) gave a boatlaod of money to Obama!

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-The Dude

:tinfoilhat:

Glad I moved my savings from them. So these groups paid kickbacks to CDR for securing investment deals. Geez am I surprise

I wanna follow this, and hope it does not just go away.