Citigroup facing $715M fine for insider trading

[NVMojo]

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) - Australia's securities regulator Friday accused Citigroup Inc. of illegal insider trading on a $3.3 billion bid by transport company Toll Holdings Ltd. for rival Patrick Corp.

Citigroup's Australian arm denied any wrongdoing regarding the deal. It had advised Toll, one of Australia's biggest shipping firms, on the offer for Patrick last year.

In its first such case against a company, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) said it had identified substantial trading in Patrick shares by Citigroup's own accounts on Aug. 19, the last business day before Toll announced its bid on Aug. 22.

Shares in Patrick jumped 13 percent on Aug. 19, with about 20.5 million shares sold or nearly 3 percent of shares on issue. After the bid was announced, they jumped another 14 percent.

"This is a significant case raising two very important issues for the securities industry: having adequate arrangements for managing inside information and dealing with conflicts of interest," the commission's deputy chairman, Jeremy Cooper, said.

more...


http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/31/news/international/citigroup_australia.reut/index.htm

[formercia]

1. Couldn't happen to a better bank.

Bankers to the plutocrats.

[NVMojo]

2. you got that right!

[darkmaestro019]

3. AAAAAAA ha ha. Eat it, Citigroup.

I worked for them for about four weeks. After an elderly woman called me sobbing because they were chasing her with debt collectors because she finally STOPPED PAYING her bills for a STOLEN CARD I quit.

She called when it happened to tell them the card was stolen so she'd be short on her minimum payment now that the balance was so big, and they told her if she was she'd get a late fee! Not a peep about, uh, STOLEN CARD!

Evil, evil, evil. I hope they get leprosy and crabs and struck by lightning, but meanwhile this'll have to do.

[acmejack]

4. A pox upon the money lenders

The good xtians apparently choose to disregard the teachings of their lord about the money lenders. Take the parts you like, disregard the parts you don't, the poor, fuck em! The meek, losers! Lepers, yuck!

[Uben]

5. Don't the Saudis own CitiBank? n/t

n/t

[formercia]

8. I think they own a percentage

good research project. They don't make enough selling us the oil, they make interest on people who can't afford to pay cash.

Citigroup...screwing the little guy.


More dirt on Citigroup and the Bushes:

http://www.thegully.com/essays/argentina/010227corruption.html

[MGKrebs]

6. My Citibank card is now at 31.49% apr.

Fortunately, I don't owe them much.
I'm 48, own my home, have worked the same job for 10 years, and pay my bills.

[sofa king]

7. Where are the drugs? They'll show up sooner or later.

Michael Ruppert has been all over CitiGroup for years now. Consider for example this cynical headline:

Citigroup, the Largest Drug Money Laundering Bank in America Buys Mexican Drug Laundering Bank Banamex

Ruppert claims that the freshly-laundered drug money is then loaned at an attractively low interest rate (to further "wash" it as quickly as possible), and he further speculates that those low-interest loans may have been behind the jobless and joyless economic recovery we reputedly had in 2002-2003, after opium production was resumed in Afghanistan under CIA supervision.