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from the money-money-money-moooooneeyy dept.
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges it used trades involving customer cash to lower the firm's borrowing costs in violation of the SEC's Customer Protection Rule.
[...] According to the SEC's order, Morgan Stanley had its affiliate, Morgan Stanley Equity Financing Ltd., serve as a customer of its U.S. broker-dealer, a relationship that allowed the affiliate to use margin loans from the U.S. broker-dealer to finance the costs of hedging swap trades with customers. The margin loans lowered the borrowing costs incurred to hedge these swap trades and reduced the U.S. broker-dealer's customer reserve account deposit requirements by tens to hundreds of millions of dollars per day.
The SEC order finds that Morgan Stanley's affiliated transactions violated the Customer Protection Rule and that as a result of inaccurately calculating its customer reserve account requirements, it submitted inaccurate reports to the SEC. Morgan Stanley provided substantial cooperation during the SEC's investigation and has agreed to review its compliance with the Customer Protection Rule and to take remedial steps to improve its calculation processes. Morgan Stanley also significantly increased the amount of excess funds it maintains in its customer reserve account.
Source: The Securities and Exchange Commission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:24PM
Why? They're going to get worse, or better?
These are light slaps on the wrist that don't impress me one iota. I'll believe there is justice when the executives themselves pay the fines out of their own bank accounts. I'll feel even better when there are NO FINES. We make the executives clean up trash on the highway every weekend for 3 years. If they hurt us too much, it's Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison.
Seriously. There are two sets of laws. One book for the slaves, and one book for the elites. Some brown guy is sitting in prison for stealing $100 to eat (and gave back the change), while these fucks have their behavior handled by an accountant under their employ.
These stories are a disgusting reminder of how unequal we really all are.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:24AM
There are more than 2 sets of laws. There are somewhere around 5:
1. The completely unprosecutable: These are political and business leaders who can commit horrendous crimes and never face justice. Think Dick Cheney, who announced on CNN that he committed war crimes, which the US is required by treaty to do something about, and notice that nothing happens to him.
2. Rich people: These folks can commit crimes with impunity unless they are against other rich people. Think Bernie Madoff: His real mistake was ripping off rich people rather than poor people like Wells Fargo did.
3. Middle class white people: These get something akin to the justice system taught in high school civics.
4. Working class white people, middle-class non-white people: These folks get bullied into accepting bad plea bargains, have poor or no legal representation, and are basically screwed the moment they get arrested.
5. Working non-white people, underclass: Can be summarily executed by police without any consequences to the cops.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @04:48AM
https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=17550¬e=&title=French+Court+Finds+IMF+Chief+Christine+Lagarde+Guilty+of+Negligence+but+Doesn%27t+Impose+Penalty [soylentnews.org]
"n1 [soylentnews.org] writes:
A French court Monday found Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, guilty of negligence during her time as the country’s finance minister, but the fund’s board expressed full confidence in her.
The court imposed no penalty on Ms. Lagarde, who had pleaded not guilty over allegations of negligence stemming from her role in settling a long-running legal battle between the French state and business tycoon Bernard Tapie. She wasn’t in court for the ruling, but her lawyers said they were taken aback after the prosecutor in the case last week argued against a guilty verdict.
Source: Wall Street Journal [wsj.com]"
No paywall version http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38369822 [bbc.com] "guilty of negligence" and still giving "advices" from IMF chair, with no fines, prision or even being noted in criminal record.
Lagarde must be from group 2, and while she plays along she will be OK. Strauss Kahn pissed someone, but who? Maybe he rocked the USD boat? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/8316834/International-Monetary-Fund-director-Dominique-Strauss-Kahn-calls-for-new-world-currency.html [telegraph.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:46AM
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MF_Global&oldid=696690260#October_2011:_MF_Global_transfers_client_account_funds_to_its_own_account [wikipedia.org]