Replies to post #19943 on NSS ~ Counterfeiting Stock ~ MM Games Played

[fourkids_9pets]

Don't you just wish the US regulators would grow some balls?

Vietnam Shows How They Clean Up Corrupt Banking System as Banker Sentenced to DEATH for Fraud

As bankers loot trillions from US citizens and face no consequences,
Vietnam shows they have a strict punishment for corruption—death.

Vietnam — (ZH) The lack of prosecution of US bankers responsible for the great financial crisis has been a much debated topic over the years, leading to the coinage of such terms as “Too Big To Prosecute”, the termination of at least one corrupt DOJ official, the revelation that Eric Holder is the most useless Attorney General in history, and of course billions in cash kickbacks between Wall Street and D.C. And, naturally, the lack of incentives that punish cheating and fraud, is one of the main reasons why such fraud will not only continue but get bigger until once again, the entire system crashes under the weight of accumulated theft, corruption and Fed-driven malinvestment. But what can be done? In this case, Vietnam may have just shown the way – sentence embezzling bankers to death. Because if one wants to promptly stop an end to all financial crime, few things motivate as efficiently as a firing squad.

According to the BBC, the former head of a major Vietnamese bank has been sentenced to death for his role in a fraud case involving some 800 billion dong (which sounds like a lot of dong, but equals roughly $35 million) of illegal loans. Nguyen Xuan Son, who served as general director of OceanBank, was convicted of embezzlement, abuse of power and economic mismanagement. Bank founder, tycoon Ha Van Tham, and dozens of other banking officials are also on trial, accused of lending violations.

Meanwhile, dozens of former employees also received lengthy prison sentences in the major corruption trial. Because OceanBank is partially-state owned, Son’s crime of mishandling state money was thought to be particularly serious. After leaving the bank, he rose to be head of state oil giant PetroVietnam. As Reuters reported previously, PetroVietnam and Vietnam’s banking sector are at the heart of a sweeping corruption crackdown in the communist state.

The four officials are accused of intentional breaches of state rules over a loss-making investment in Ocean Group’s banking unit, police said in an online statement.

Investigations into PetroVietnam made global headlines last month when Germany accused Vietnam of kidnapping Trinh Xuan Thanh, a former official of a PetroVietnam unit, from a park in Berlin and forcing him home to face charges of financial mismanagement.

A Politburo member who was a former PetroVietnam chairman and a vice trade minister have also been sacked from their positions as part of the crackdown — unusual moves in a country where such senior officials are rarely dismissed.

To be sure, Vietnam is one of the world’s biggest executioners, according to Amnesty International, but this is said to be the first time in years that the death penalty has been given to such a high-flying former official. Back in 2013, another former banker, Vu Quoc Hao, the former general director of Agribank Financial Leasing Co, was also sentenced to death by lethal injection for embezzling $25 million (or what Goldman would call “weekend lunch money”) a case which however was relatively low profile and received little international attention.

Earlier in the day, OceanBank’s ex-chairman Ha Van Tham, once one of the richest people in Vietnam, was jailed for life on the same charges, and for violating lending rules. Judge Truong Viet Toan said: “Tham and Son’s behaviour is very serious, infringing on the management of state assets and causing public grievances, which requires strict punishment.”

In total, 51 officials and bankers stood trial, accused of mismanagement leading to losses of $69m (£50m).

The case comes amid a massive anti-corruption crackdown in Vietnam, which is ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in Asia. It is ranked 113th out of 176 countries on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index.

The government has vowed to tackle the issue in order to boost the country’s economic growth. In May, a top Vietnamese official was sacked for “serious violations” while running PetroVietnam.

And yet, while one could be left with the impression that this is a case of justice finally being done, even today’s sentences appears to have an element of corruption to them: according to BBC, the blitz, while tackling corruption, has mainly targeted opponents of Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.

Still, no matter the circumstances, an outcome such as this in the US remains impossible: after all it is America’s very own embezzling bankers that control the legislative and judicial branches, and most recently, the executive not to mention the central bank, which is why deterrence of any substantial scale will never take place in the US and small, medium and large-scale theft will continue unabated, with the occasional slaps on the wrist, until there is nothing left to steal.

thefreethoughtproject.com/vietnam-sentence-banker-death-fraud/

original post/link courtesy of 801

[fourkids_9pets]

Top SEC Officials Only Recently Learned of 2016 Company-Database Hack

Edgar system stores confidential forms that could be juicy targets for hackers

By Dave Michaels and Jean Eaglesham
Sept. 21, 2017 2:13 p.m. ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-sec-official...1506017614

WASHINGTON—Top Securities and Exchange Commission officials weren’t told until recently about a 2016 cyberattack that penetrated its system for public-company filings, raising questions about how the breach was initially handled.

The SEC revealed the hack, which occurred and was detected last year, for the first time on Wednesday. SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar, who ran the SEC as acting chairman for three months earlier this year, said late Wednesday that he was only recently informed. Another SEC commissioner, Kara Stein, was informed of the breach this week, a person familiar with the matter said.

SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, who started work in May after his nomination by President Donald Trump, revealed the breach and a related investigation on Wednesday night, saying the commission learned this August that the breach could have enabled illegal trading. The report follows Equifax Inc.’s disclosure of a major breach of its systems that affected 143 million Americans.

Mr. Piwowar, who led the agency from late January until early May, said he was “recently informed for the first time” about the hack into the SEC’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System, known as Edgar.

Former SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, who led the agency in 2016, declined to comment when asked about the hack.

The agency appeared not to have followed the typical protocols for public companies, where cybersecurity issues are overseen by the board of directors, said Thomas Sporkin, a former SEC enforcement official.

“You would have expected the commission to have been informed of a breach to an SEC database that houses information critical to investors,” said Mr. Sporkin, now a partner at law firm Buckley Sandler LLP.

Mr. Clayton’s statement described other SEC vulnerabilities to hackers, but provided few details about intrusion, possible trading or which companies might have been affected. The SEC hasn’t responded to requests for additional details.

Mr. Clayton, a former corporate lawyer, has a deeper background in cybersecurity than many of his predecessors. He led Sullivan & Cromwell LLP’s cybersecurity practice and retained a cybersecurity adviser, Christopher R. Hetner, who was formerly chief information security officer at GE Capital.

SEC officials routinely examine the cybersecurity defenses of brokerage firms and investment advisers and have sometimes indicated they could take enforcement action against a public company that misled investors about a significant hack affecting share prices.

Mr. Clayton is sure to face questions about the event next week, when he is scheduled to testify before the Senate Banking Committee. Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), a member of the panel, said he planned to ask Mr. Clayton about the duties of public companies to disclose when they are hacked. Yahoo Inc. took two months to disclose to the public and its shareholders after learning that 500 million user accounts were hacked in 2014.

“The SEC’s disclosure, which comes not even two weeks after Equifax revealed that it had been hacked, shows that government and businesses need to step up their efforts to protect our most sensitive personal and commercial information,” said Mr. Warner. The Senate Banking Committee oversees the SEC.

The Edgar system was launched during the 1990s to equalize access to information among retail and sophisticated investors, but has occasionally caused headaches for the commission. Academic researchers found in 2014, for instance, that hedge funds and other rapid-fire investors got earlier access to market-moving documents from Edgar than other users of the standard, web-based system, giving them a potential edge on other traders. The SEC later said it fixed the problem.

The system ingests a mountain of data, filed by thousands of public companies and brokerage firms and mutual funds. While most filings are made public as soon as they are received, some other forms aren’t meant to be disclosed immediately and could be juicy targets for hackers.

One example: correspondence that shows the SEC’s feedback on key corporate disclosures such as annual and quarterly reports. The letters often focus on questions of accounting judgment and lead to companies updating the language in their filings. The letters typically become public 20 days after the SEC closes the file.

Seeing that type of information before it is released publicly could allow a hacker to gain insight into a pending accounting restatement, which would hurt a company’s stock price, said Richard Truesdell, head of capital markets at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.

Mro was interim chairman of the regulator earlier this year, said late Wednesday that he was ‘recen. Piwowar, who was interim chairman of the regulator earlier this year, said late Wednesday that he was ‘recently informed for the first time’ about the hack into the agency’s Edgar system.

The Edgar system also stores confidential forms that companies file when they sell shares for the first time, known as registration statements, said Brian Lane, a partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP. The forms are withheld from investors as companies receive feedback on the disclosures from the SEC staff. Seeing the forms during that phase would provide fascinating insight into a private company’s earnings, but a hacker couldn’t immediately profit from the information because the stock isn’t yet trading on an exchange, Mr. Lane said.

Mr. Clayton’s statement didn’t identify the precise date of the intrusion or what sort of nonpublic data was obtained. The agency said the hackers exploited a vulnerability in part of the Edgar system that allows companies to test the accuracy of data transmitted in new forms. Newly appointed corporate directors and officers often file test forms that reveal the extent of their ownership of the company’s stock or options, Mr. Lane said.

“We face the risks of cyberthreat actors attempting to compromise the credentials of authorized users, gain unauthorized access to filings data, place fraudulent filings on the system, and prevent the public from accessing our system through denial of service attacks,” Mr. Clayton said in his statement Wednesday.

David Smyth, a former SEC enforcement official who is now a partner at law firm Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard LLP, said the SEC is in a difficult position because it is subject to the same cyberthreats as the rest of Wall Street.

“But it’s not great optics if the agency itself is hacked,” he said. “I do find the fact that the hack wasn’t disclosed to the commissioners themselves quite surprising,” he added.

—Tatyana Shumsky contributed to this article.

Write to Dave Michaels at [e-mail] and Jean Eaglesham at [e-mail]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-sec-official...1506017614

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original post and link courtesy of alanc