SEC and Other Investigations of Illegal Trading
- Kirk
- Kirk
- Kirk
- Sinewave
- Sinewave
- Sinewave
- Jen_
- Kirk
- Jen_
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» Kirk - Martha Stewart's Friend
.Congressional probe focuses on Stewart friend-report (IMCL, MSO, MER) By Allen Wan
The congressional probe into Martha Stewart's (MSO) sale of ImClone Systems (IMCL) is focusing on a friend of Stewart's, who dumped 10,000 shares of the biotech firm at around the same time she did, Time magazine reported, citing unidentified sources close to the investigation. Dr. Bart Pasternak, a Westport, Conn. vascular surgeon, sold 10,000 shares of Imclone on Dec. 27th or 28th -- about the same time Stewart sold around 4,000 shares, the report said. Pasternak's estranged wife, Mariana, was traveling with Stewart to Mexico on Dec. 27 -- the day Merrill Lynch (MER) broker Peter Bacanovic executed the sale of Stewart's shares. The probe is now focused on whether Mariana Pasternak had contact that day with her husband, the report said.
-- posted by Kirk
» Kirk - Martha Stewart stock dives on more ImClone questions
.http://cbs.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/...
Martha Stewart stock dives on more ImClone questions
6/24/2002 11:43:00 AM
NEW YORK, Jun 24, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Shares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. plummeted more than 18 percent in morning trading Monday, fueled by more questions about the decorating maven's highly scrutinized sale of stock in ImClone Systems Inc.
Congressional investigators and federal prosecutors are looking into Stewart's sale of nearly 4,000 shares of the biotechnology company on Dec. 27, a day before federal regulators said they would not consider the company's new cancer drug. ImClone's shares subsequently plummeted. Stewart has repeatedly said that her trade was legal and based on information available to the public at the time.
Late Friday, Merrill Lynch announced that it had put Stewart's broker Peter Bacanovic, as well as his assistant, Douglas Faneuil, who handled the ImClone trade, on paid leave. The action was based on discrepancies in statements of the two Merrill Lynch employees, according to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the ImClone case.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Faneuil has offered information that contradicts what Stewart and Bacanovic maintain was the trigger for the sale.
They have said the stock was sold because of a previously arranged sell order to dump the shares when it reached below dlrs 60. Statements from Faneuil, however, shed doubt on whether such an order existed, according to the Wall Street Journal report.
Bacanovic is the broker for ImClone co-founder and former CEO Sam Waksal and his daughter Aliza, as well as Stewart.
Waksal was charged June 12 with insider trading.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's shares have been taking a beating since June 6, when reports surfaced of the congressional probe into Stewart's sale of ImClone stock. They were down dlrs 3.01 Monday, reaching dlrs 12.96 each on the New York Stock Exchange.
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
-- posted by Kirk
» Kirk - Martha Stewart Living Omnimed Chart
.<img src=http://cbs.marketwatch.com/charts/int-ad... width=452 height=366>
Could just be testing 9/21/01 lows…..
-- posted by Kirk
» Sinewave - Andersen & Cheney Cooked Halliburton's Books
MAY 22: No wonder the Bush administration ignored early signs that Enron and its auditor Arthur Andersen had, for years, doctored Enron's books. It seems that VP Cheney had some chestnuts in that fire himself.It was reported this week that while Vice President Dick Cheney served as CEO of Halliburton Corp he approved similar bookkeeping trickery. And, just like Enron, Cheney's choice of auditors was customer compliant Arthur Andersen.
A month ago Halliburton quietly announced that it might have to restate some earlier earnings. Yesterday the other shoe dropped. The company admitted that it had "altered" its books - while Cheney was CEO - to report as revenue more than $100 million in "disputed costs" on some construction projects. It seems that, even though Halliburton's clients were refusing to pay the bills, claiming they did not owe that much, the company booked the disputed accounts receivables as money in hand.
Two former executives of the company have reportedly told investigators that Halliburton employed "aggressive accounting practices in order to obscure losses."
Since the Supreme Court ruled during the Clinton administration that a serving President of the United States is not immune from civil court actions, Cheney remains vulnerable to shareholder lawsuits.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Figures Don't Lie But Liars Can Figure
But, compared to the book-cooks at Enron, Cheney was an amateur. Today it was reported that Enron Corp. created a series of bogus tax-reduction transactions between 1995 and last year that boosted its reported profits by nearly $1 billion. And, they could not have done it without help from Washington.
"We just did what the accounting rules allowed us to do," Enron's general tax counsel at the time said. "We took advantage of what the rules are. If you know the rules you don't have to break the rules, you just use them. That's what lawyers and accountants do.”
And, to some degree he is right. Since 1994, when Republicans regained control of the House and brought with them the "Contract With America," a relentless attack on corporate regulation and oversight that companies had all the wiggle room they needed to convert annual reports into works of fiction - and get away with it.
One of the defenses likely to be used by Enron executives, if any ever end up in the dock, will be that Enron was only taking advantage of a lax and confused regulatory environment.
Continues...........
-- posted by Sinewave
» Sinewave - VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY SUED PERSONALLY FOR ALLEGED STOCK FRAUD
Alleged Fraudulent Accounting Practices Occurred At HalliburtonPRESS CONFERENCE
Date: July 10, 2002
Time: 9:00 A.M.
Location: Sheraton Hotel Parlor 1, 495 Brickell Ave Miami, FL
(Washington, D.C.) Judicial Watch, the group that investigates and prosecutes corruption by government officials, announced today that it is filing a shareholders suit in Dallas, Texas, against Vice President Dick Cheney and the other involved directors of Halliburton, as well as Halliburton itself, for alleged fraudulent accounting practices which resulted in the overvaluation of the company’s shares, thereby deceiving investors and others.
The suit comes one day after President George W. Bush, who himself is enmeshed in allegations of insider trading when he was an executive, who sat on the audit committee of Harken Energy Company, announced a “plan” to crack down on corporate fraud. Ironically, it would appear that the President’s rush to propose more regulation of private industry is intended to deflect attention away from his and his Vice President’s own alleged improper business practices. President Bush has maintained that he was cleared by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Others have countered that the head of the agency was then an appointee of his father, President George H.W.Bush.
President Clinton and the Democratic Party used a similar gambit when they were caught taking money illegally from foreign donors, including the Communist Chinese. Instead of prosecuting vigorously the Clintons and other guilty politicians, new campaign finance laws were proposed to deflect attention away from alleged crimes.
“Whether it is the Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, or now the Halliburton and Harken scandals, there is a dangerous intersection between politicians of all stripes, Democrat and Republican, attempting to feed at the trough of business greed. As is true of the Clinton scandals, the American people cannot look the other way just because the President and Vice President are allegedly involved. Indeed, Judicial Watch has already sued Democrat and Republican officials in the Enron and Global Crossing scandals. To look the other way for the Vice President would be to set a precedent that the Washington elite are above the law. This cannot be permitted if our democracy is to survive,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.
In 1995 Halliburton was prosecuted and forced to plead guilty to trading with Libya, a terrorist state on the U.S. watch list.
A press conference will be held in Miami at 9:00 A.M. at the Sheraton Hotel at 495 Brickell Avenue to announce and detail this suit.
-- posted by Sinewave
» Jen_ - Fraud Task-Force
I think sooner or later we're going to have to face up to the fact that the over-exhuberant Bull Market of the '90s has tainted everyone - no one's hands are clean - not the CEOs nor the Directors, not the auditors nor the regulators, not the analysts nor financial commentators, not the politicians - neither GOPs nor Dems, not the speculative investors ...... the whole system unfortunately is rotten to the core.So having said that - who would be better at catching corporate crooks than a former corporate crook? They say it takes one to know one....
This from 7/13 WSJ....
Fraud Task-Force Chief Served On Board of Troubled Credit Firm
Associated Press
The leader of President Bush's new task force on corporate crime was a director of a credit-card company that paid more than $400 million to settle charges of consumer and securities fraud.
Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general, served on the board of the company, Providian Financial Corp., from June 1997 until he was confirmed by the Senate in May 2001, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents.
During that period, state, local and federal agencies investigated Providian for gouging its customers, who filed class-action lawsuits against the company. Providian paid more than $400 million in 2000 to settle the investigations and lawsuits.
During the first two weeks in 1999 after the government investigations were disclosed, the company's shares plunged from $62.06 to as low as $39.22.
In March, Providian agreed to pay $38 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by shareholders alleging the company inflated its profits through its price-gouging practices. The settlement covered investors who bought the company's stock between Jan. 21, 1999 and June 4, 1999, when Mr. Thompson was a company director.
Mr. Thompson wasn't questioned about his role at Providian during his Senate confirmation hearings.
Providian's officers and directors, including Mr. Thompson, are defendants in a class-action lawsuit brought by company employees who claim they urged large holdings of Providian stock in 401(k) retirement plans while they were employing questionable accounting methods and cashing in on their own shares.
Mr. Bush established the white-collar crime task force Tuesday amid mounting corporate scandals. He gave Mr. Thompson until July 19 to convene its first meeting. But in a surprise move, he held the first session on Friday at the White House.
At the meeting, Mr. Thompson pledged to go after corporate criminals "with vigor and an aggressive manner."
Subscribe to WSJ Online @ http://www.wsj.com
.....Jen
-- posted by Jen_
» Kirk - Johnson & Johnson Confirms FDA Probe
..
7:16AM Johnson & Johnson under investigation for Eprex illnesses (JNJ) 49.73: The New York Times reports that the govt is conducting a criminal investigation into a JNJ factory in Puerto Rico that makes its anemia drug Eprex that has been linked to a number of serious illnesses in Europe and Canada; the FDA and Justice Dept investigation is tied to a whistle-blower lawsuit filed against JNJ by a former employee at the factory who contends he was pressed to falsify data to cover up manufacturing lapses and then was suspended a few days before an expected interview with FDA inspectors.
http://finance.yahoo.com/mp#jnj
and
http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/020719/2002071...
Jeepers... now it seems the big companies are literally making people sick.
Friday July 19, 9:25 am Eastern Time
Johnson & Johnson Confirms FDA Probe Related to Ex-Employee Lawsuit
By: Hollister H. Hovey
Dow Jones Newswires
NEW YORK -- Johnson & Johnson confirmed that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating the company, related to a lawsuit filed by an ex-employee about his termination in 1999.
"There is a lawsuit filed by an ex employee about his termination in 1999; it involves allegations involving record keeping," spokesman Marc Monseau said. " The employee was a utilities worker with no manufacturing responsibility. We are also aware of an FDA investigation, presumably related to the lawsuit."
The New York Times reported Friday that both the FDA and the Justice Department are conducting a criminal investigation into a factory that makes an anemia drug that has been linked to a serious spate of illnesses in Europe and Canada . Mr. Monseau wouldn't confirm the Department of Justice's involvement in the matter.
The factory, in Puerto Rico , manufactures Eprex, a drug use to increase levels of red blood cells in people undergoing kidney dialysis or suffering from anemia caused by chemotherapy.
Health authorities in Europe and North America have become increasingly concerned over the last few months about a mysterious rise in the number of Eprex users who have developed pure red cell aplasia, a condition in which the body can lose its ability to produce red blood cells, leaving the patient dependent on blood transfusions to survive, the Times reported.
The investigation is tied to a whistle-blower lawsuit by Hector Arce, a former employee at the factory in Puerto Rico . Arce, who was fired in March 1999 , contends he was pressed to falsify data to cover manufacturing lapses, and then was suspended a few days before an expected interview with FDA inspectors, the paper said.
"After investing the allegations, we found no support for them," Mr. Monseau said. The company maintains the alleged matters would not affect product integrity, he said, adding, "The company intends to vigorously defend against this employee's lawsuit."
While Johnson & Johnson is "unaware of the precise nature of the FDA's investigation, the company has offered its cooperation to all parties concerned, " Mr. Monseau said.
-Hollister H. Hovey, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5287; hollister.hovey@ dowjones.com
-- posted by Kirk
» Jen_ - Re: Johnson & Johnson Confirms FDA Probe
In response to message posted by Kirk:Kirk - Yikes - doesn't sound good for J&J and they've been like a safe haven in this bear....
<img src="http://cchart.yimg.com/z?s=jnj&c=^gspc,^..." width=512 height=288>
JNJ, DJIA, S&P500, Naz 5 YR Chart
The "Up" effects of J&J's winning the stent war with one of their products may be negated by the "Down" effects of an FDA probe into another of their products. We've been discussing JNJ on the "Med Tech" thread....
http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/i...
....Jen
-- posted by Jen_
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