Whistleblower. Something truly rotten in the banking sector. Silence from our politicians!!!

[Greengoddess]

This website might be of interest too
http://europeansforfinancialreform.org/en/about

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

After mentioning the other day that the system of Financial Regulation for member states in Europe is that complaints/reports must be exhausted in the member country (as is the case with most European regulatory designs) that is when the ability to kick up to European level normally occurs.

What I notice however with regulation of the banking sector is that we have a number of emerging dynamics.

Firstly that there does not appear to be any obvious route to take issues to an overarching European Regulator. Secondly, as announced recently in the media, the European Central Bank is currently making that policy pitch to be the regulator for all European banks and central banks as I understand it. This does not leave much room for the citizen's voice where, as in Ireland, the Financial Regulator and Central Bank themselves are regarded with a good deal of suspicion for being inherently 'native' to the banking sector and effectively captured, fore example, by lobbyists for the IFSC.

I cannot conceive of a situation nor have I ever heard of a situation where the Irish Banking Federation has been taken to task by the Central Bank or the office of the Irish Financial Regulator.

For example, what action has been taken on the manipulation of the interbank lending rate in which one major Irish bank has been involved?

What actions have been taken with regard to the Bank of Ireland and its reported liquidity ratio breaches early last year?

And why, as mentioned on this thread, is the Minister of Finance's office, the office of the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank more concerned with threateneing whistleblowers on serious and repeated breaches of liquidity regulations than actually investigating same?

In essence, we are looking at a system which has taken over its supposed regulators and captured those officials, elected and otherwise, and is using them to attempt to deflect proper investigation.

That would be my summary - and I see no regulating body supranationally, either at ECB or Eurofin, which acknowledges any duty to do anything differently to that which currently happens in Ireland.

I know there are whisteblowers in the UK who are facing similar issues.

[C. Flower]

This website might be of interest too
http://europeansforfinancialreform.org/en/about

Thanks.

[DCon]

A US Whistleblower (currently in jail) has been awarded USD 104,000,000 as a reward for his Whistleblowing

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8891AD20120910

[C. Flower]

A US Whistleblower (currently in jail) has been awarded USD 104,000,000 as a reward for his Whistleblowing

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8891AD20120910

Now that's what I call whistleblower legislation.

The Irish version proposes punitive measures against malicious whistleblowers.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

And in Ireland all whistleblowers are regarded by the establishment as 'malicious'. Fraudulent state.

[DCon]

Now that's what I call whistleblower legislation.

The Irish version proposes punitive measures against malicious whistleblowers.

I doubt the US would be as harsh on one of their own though. Easy to fine UBS, but if it was Goldman or JPM it is more likely any Whistleblower would be accidented off

[WhistleblowerIRL]

The latest edition of Village magazine is now available on the news-stands in Ireland.
Here is a link to the on-line update about the threats made by the Central Bank of Ireland and McCann Fitzgerald:
http://www.villagemagazine.ie/index....09/villager-3/


The cartoon in Village really says it all:

[C. Flower]

The latest edition of Village magazine is now available on the news-stands in Ireland.
Here is a link to the on-line update about the threats made by the Central Bank of Ireland and McCann Fitzgerald:
http://www.villagemagazine.ie/index....09/villager-3/


The cartoon in Village really says it all:

I love it.

[WhistleblowerIRL]

I am very concerned about the influence of this group on the government and our taxation policies. And will begin a campaign on it. As some of you know I uncovered letters under FOI about the FTT whose tone was described in unmentionable terms by Dcon!
This in a time of budget savagery too. It is difficult though to get the media interested . ( for some reason....)
Whistleblower, if you would like to meet, I'll send you a pm. I am actually, a real, live politician.

Dear Greengodess,

I am sure that as a politician and as a Greengodess you are kept very very busy. That is probably why I never heard from you after our meeting at the beginning this year. As you requested, I emailed you with all the relevant information shortly after we met. Alas, I received no response.

I have just emailed you with a copy of the editorial article in the latest edition of Village magazine which went on sale yesterday. I will quote and link the article to PW as soon as it is available on-line.

I look forward to your response.

Kind regards,
Jonathan Sugarman

[C. Flower]

Brian Lenihan did all he could to sweep this under the carpet.

Is there any sign at all of the present government taking regulation seriously?

How can they, if they leave major breaches uninvestigated?

[WhistleblowerIRL]

Brian Lenihan did all he could to sweep this under the carpet.

Yes, indeed. Greengodess could always ask Minister Joan Burton how come she raised my issue with Lenihan in writing while she was in the opposition, but has not uttered a word about it since?!? Burton's written question and Lenihan's pathetic reply are the basis for my very first blog posting.

While she's at at, Greengodess could ask Burton to also share with her what she told me about her meeting with Patrick Honohan regarding the collapse of DEPFA. I'm sure it will be of interest to the broader public - socialists & capitalists alike.

[disability student]

I recall Minister for 'lifestyle choice' had that matter in the Dail as i'm sure it's on the official record.

It's total silence from her since she became a govt minister. It's clear now that she was trying to score political point over Lenihan.

It was interesting that two Central bank officials such as Mary O' Dea and Con Horan were rewarded a plum jobs just like Kevin Cardiff did with EU.

What i am suggesting that it all points to John Hurley prior to Patrick Honahan/Elderfield (both came into their positions Sept/Oct 2009 respectively) as such documentation should be had in their possession re liquidity breaches.

[WhistleblowerIRL]

Village magazine's latest editorial article is now available on-line:

Blowing the whistle so hard it hurts (editorial Nov 12)

Nov 6th, 2012

Nearly all Ireland’s banks breached liquidity requirements, leading to the lack of liquidity that the government provided a guarantee against, and which ultimately emerged as the insolvency that bankrupted the country and immiserated the next generation. Failures at the Regulator and in the Central Bank contributed as much as anything to this bankruptcy. The public is entitled to know that these well-paid and cosseted functionaries have learnt lessons and are now demonstrating the most stringent and scrupulous standards. It’s interesting then to know how they treated the most important whistleblower in Irish banking history.

In December 2010 a risk-manager in the Irish unit of UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank, described in Village how in 2007 the Financial Regulator failed to intervene after he first alleged he falsified liquidity-ratio figures. The risk-manager maintained he was specifically warned by senior personnel at the Irish subsidiary not to report the matter to the Financial Regulator, even though sound banking depends on maintenance of these ‘liquidity ratios’ which are crucial to the ability of the company to deal with losses of confidence. The liquidity ratio should be no less than 90 per cent. At UniCredit it was calculated at an extraordinary 50 per cent. A ratio of 89 per cent would in normal circumstances be deemed problematic. In banking terms this is like paying with a two-euro note.

Jonathan Sugarman blew the whistle on the massive repeated breaches. This magazine received aggressive threats from McCann FitzGerald solicitors on behalf of UniCredit not to publish the information.

The new ‘poster-boy’ regulator, Matthew Elderfield, stated in response to questions from the Sunday Business Post, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a respected German newspaper, about statements made in the Seanad by David Norris which backed up Sugarman’s account, that “our records do not match the description of events given by Senator Norris nor did we receive what might be described as a ‘whistleblower’ letter. We can, however, confirm that an overnight liquidity breach was reported by an institution around the time in question. The matter was followed up with the institution and rectified to the satisfaction of the Financial Regulator at the time”.

For someone in whom so much public good-will has been invested, this is remarkably disingenuous, though certainly true. The Regulator’s records presumably do not match Senator Norris’s because its agents didn’t look hard enough or take a proper record; and the Regulator did not receive a whistleblower letter as the letter came from UniCredit itself, which limited its declaration to one overnight breach. Notably, nothing the Regulator said undermined the credibility of the risk-manager.

Largely as a result of the story in Village which named the bank, the Central Bank said it would conduct a review of the case and invited parties with information to share it: “if any party has specific information they wish to draw to our attention in this matter it will be treated on a confidential basis”. Things dragged out but in February 2012 the risk-manager attended a meeting with the office of the regulator. Scandalously the bank’s offer of ‘confidentiality’ was revealed under pressure to be spurious when it insisted that it wouldn’t be enough to shield Sugarman against self-incrimination in the event his own actions constituted criminal activity. The Central Bank insisted it must forward information to the DPP if there were evidence of a crime. This highlights the need for whistleblower legislation to protect insiders who tell their truth – and particularly that legislation should be retrospective, so it would embrace cases like Mr Sugarman’s.

In June, the Central bank informed Mr Sugarman, without giving reasons, that the matter was closed and only after Mark Keenan raised the affair anew in the Irish Independent in September, did the Central Bank finally furnished minutes of the meeting it had had with Mr Sugarman. This was six months after the original meeting. For some reason Mr Keenan is no longer writing on these issues in the Irish Independent.

Matthew Elderfield and his office are doing no favours to EU banking regulators, or to the world’s banking and economic system, in being disingenuous about liquidity breaches at the elusive UniCredit. If there is a desire not to frighten the horses just while our bailout is under review, it is misplaced. The lesson of recent history for this country is scrupulousness and openness.

There is a general official view that Ireland’s ethical delinquencies are in the past. Deviant planning stopped when the tribunals started; and bad banking regulation stopped with the demise of Pat Neary. In fact this is not so with planning as we have seen with the kicking to touch of John Gormley’s reviews of planning in six counties. Scrutiny of what happened in banking has been limited to two innocuous reports by Patrick Honohan, Peter Nyberg and Klaus Regling. These notably failed to attribute blame or to deal with how liquidity ratios were breached all over financial Dublin with no comment from the usual over-paid auditors, and no sanction.

Inconveniently for a country that has started to see corruption and regulation in black (then) and white (now) terms, the general view may not reflect the reality. Without proper scrutiny we cannot be sure either way.

Like bad planning, bank under-regulation was a manifestation of this country’s ineradicable tendency to pander to vested interests and to the short term. It is time we got to the bottom of what happened in Irish banking. Scrupulous investigation of Mr Sugarman’s allegations would be a symbolic good start.

http://www.villagemagazine.ie/index....hard-it-hurts/

[WhistleblowerIRL]

PS

I have yet to hear anything back from Greengodess. She must be very busy.
Having said that, both ministers Joan Burton AND Richard Bruton were very eager to meet with me while still in opposition, but have fallen deathly silent about the matter since they came to power. Joan Burton raised my issue in writing for the attention of the late Brian Lenhian, ex Minister of Finance...
http://whistleblowerirl.blogspot.gr/...an-burton.html