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The New York Post reports:
Wall Street banks secretly shared client information in online chat rooms in order to rig auctions for the $14 trillion US Treasurys market, according to an explosive lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court on [November 15].
The move wrongly fattened the banks' profits and picked profits from clients, the suit claims.
The new accusations, leveled by several pension funds and wealthy individual investors, are contained in an expanded class-action suit originally filed in July 2015 — and include an unusual twist: Some of the evidence came from confidential informants and one of the banks sued in the earlier action.
That bank is now cooperating with the plaintiffs in the massive civil action, and is providing an in-depth look into how Wall Street allegedly conspired to rig Treasury bond trades.
The revised lawsuit expands on details on how the banks conspired to set Treasury bond prices — like moves to manipulate the price of the bonds higher on days when there was a lot of demand, and vice versa, court papers claim.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 27 2017, @06:09PM
In an industry worth trillions, but divided amongst a couple thousand highly competitive players, your ten billion would be a ridiculously low number.
On the other hand, an industry that is only worth a few billions, nationwide, that same ten billion would be an awfully high number. One player could establish a near total monopoly, and still be "safe" from being worth to much.
And, that's the whole problem with our economy today. Far too few people control huge segments of a limited industry. I would set some percentage of the industry (20% sounds good to me, offhand) beyond which we start considering breaking a company up. Break it up, or give the competition some advantages against them. Or, just tax them for the excess control, or something.
If there are only three beverage suppliers in your state, collusion is far to easy. Joe, Tom, and Melissa get together at the country club, and decide how they are going to set prices, and milk the sheeple. When there are fifty suppliers, it's a lot harder to establish total control over the market. Five suppliers is a pretty sucky, small, number - but that would have to be the minimum. The more competitors, the better.
To hell with valuations.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.