NO QUARTER FOR CORRUPTION (Focussing on The Fed./FRBS)

[Transat 5]

July 6, 2005 (FinancialWire) While General Electric’s (NYSE: GE) Dateline NBC continues to keep its naked short sales expose in forced or unforced hiatus, the “Corporate Strategies” radio program is taking up the slack.

Several U.S. Senators have chastised the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for what they call a failure to police illegal stock manipulation in companies on the Threshold lists, such as Avanex (NASDAQ: AVNX), MediaLink (NASDAQ: MDLK), and Taser International (NASDAQ: TASR).

The two hour show, “Corporate Strategies With Tim Connolly,” available on the internet “ON THE AIR NOW” at Investrend Broadcast and at http://www.businesstalkradio.net Sunday from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., will feature John O’Quinn’s lead litigator, Wes Christian, in a toll-free call-in show. The call-in number is 1-866-606-TALK.

Connolly said Christian will “disclose the latest winning decisions in court and the SEC, and he will discuss what he believes is a trillion dollar damage model for common shareholders.”

Connolly said there will several pieces of new information.

Recently a stock transfer agent, Transfer Online Inc., had asked then-SEC Chair William Donaldson to put a stop to the control the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. and Automatic Data Processing (NYSE: ADP) are fast gaining over the transfer business, and to demand DTCC transparency.

Excerpts from the letter, posted at http://www.faulkingtruth.com/Articles/LettersToEditor/1012.html , states: “Over the years as the amount of shares held at DTC has increased it has become more and more difficult to determine who owns the shares, who is trading them and if the trading is proper. This trend, and the resulting problems I will detail below, continues to increase because a minority of the total number of shareholders are reflected on the books and records of the corporation, most activity takes place behind the wall of ownership that is designated as Cede & Co. and neither the company nor the transfer agent has any access to the underlying information.

“Furthermore, DTC recently managed to put through a rule change (Release No. 34-50758A; File No.S7-24-04) that prohibits a transfer agent from representing any company who seeks to withdraw from the DTC system. This change effectively leaves companies with no voice or choice in the management of their stock and their ability to have any transparency as to what is actually taking place in the market in regard to their stock.

“I receive calls from companies seeking information as they watch millions of shares trade in a single day, who watch their share price decrease in value and who have no access to information regarding who is behind the trading of these shares, or if in fact the trades are at all legitimate. As the system now operates, most companies have a large percentage of shares on their books registered to Cede & Co.

“Given the importance of shareholder voting and communication one would assume that the same requirements placed on transfer agents as to accuracy and reporting would be placed on ADP and Cede & Co. as they usually hold or service the majority of the shares owned in any given company.

“I have found; however, that when presented with the tabulation reports from ADP the share totals they report sometimes exceed the total number of shares outstanding for the company. Let me restate this because it is a very important part of my concern about a system that is more and more headed in the direction of increased control by DTC. The shares presented by ADP, that are the shares voted by the brokers on behalf of the shareholders for whom they hold accounts, EXCEED when added to the shareholders of record the total number of shares outstanding.

“Where are these extra shares coming from? Why are there no controls on the number of shares held in the nominee name Cede & Co. vs. the ownership on the books and records of the brokers and why is the company not privy to any information unless it pays whatever fees it is told it must pay by the organizations that control the data?

“In fact, as the system is evolving, DTC is de facto becoming the largest transfer agent in the industry even though it is an organization formed by and working for the interests of the brokerage community. If, ultimately, the S.E.C. is in place to protect investors then this issue can not be ignored because in the end when the market is completely under the control of the brokers and the organizations that represent them then the market can neither be transparent nor fair.”

In other Stockgate news, Senator James Talent (R-MO), has joined U.S. Senators Richard Shelby (D-AL), Susan Collins (R-ME), Robert Bennett (R-UT) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) in questioning U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair William Donaldson about what they call the “failure” of Regulation SHO to curtail unlawful, predatory securities trading.

The current Senate line-up carries significant heft. Senator Collins is chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, Senator Shelby is chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Durbin is Assistant Democratic Leader and Senator Bennett is Republican Whip. The Senators’ letters are posted at http://www.americaneedstoknow.com

“Stockgate Today” publisher David Patch said that the Senators have 23 good reasons, citing that many companies, including Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO), Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL), Krispy Kreme (NYSE: KKD) and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), that remain “not settled” on the official threshold lists maintained by the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq five months later.

“Stockgate Today” is published at http://www.investigatethesec.com . The Senators’ letters to shareholders and the SEC are posted at http://www.americaneedstoknow.com

Patch said that most of the 23 companies hardest-hit by unlawful stock manipulations in full sight of market regulators, including those at the SEC, such as Annette Nazareth, head of market regulation, who belittles complaints as coming from those who “want to see their stock go up,” have had double-digit declines in stock valuations over the 94 days they have been on the highly-public list.

He also noted that in the March, 2005 Euromoney Magazine article on illegal naked short selling, Head of Market Regulation Annette Nazareth’s assistant, James Brigagliano said that prior lawbreakers were “grandfathered” because “we were concerned about generating volatility where there were large pre-existing open positions, and we wanted to start afresh with new regulation, not re-write history.”

“So does Ken Lay, but he can’t,” retorted Patch.

This disputed “grandfathering” has not yet been taken up by Congress, but the 23 companies on the threshhold list for over days are new transgressions, and presumably they can’t be dealt with either because Nazareth and Brigagliano are concerned about “generating volatility.”

Also, in a blockbuster event almost equal to the mysterious “postponement” of the announced expose of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. by General Electric’s (NYSE: GE) “Dateline NBC,” the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has inexplicably given the DTC’s National Securities Clearing Corp. “immunity” in the form of limited liability for willful misconduct or violations of Federal securities laws.

The Notice regarding the SEC’s action is at http://www.nscc.com/impnot/notices/notice2005/a6029.pdf