£17m bonus bonanza for top Barclays bosses despite string of scandals

Πηγή: This is Money
By JAMES SALMON
Feb 18 2013

Five top bosses at Barclays will share a jackpot worth up to £17million despite being tainted by a string of scandals.

Those in line for the ‘wildly misjudged’ bonanza include chief executive Antony Jenkins and Rich Ricci, the controversial investment bank boss.

They could pocket up to £2.2million and £6million respectively from deferred shares bonuses awarded in 2010.

A portion of this will be paid out in May, with the remainder triggering at the end of the year and dished out the following May.

Finance chief Chris Lucas, under investigation over Barclays’ 2008 emergency fund-raisings in the Middle East, could receive up to £5m. This includes a tranche of his 2011 bonus which pays out this May.

The other four are in line for a portion of their 2011 bonuses too, but the bank does not disclose who gets what.

The awards threaten to plunge Barclays into another row about pay as it attempts to rebuild its reputation.

Luke Hildyard, of campaign group the High Pay Centre, said: ‘Multi-million pound payments to bankers are unjustifiable and unnecessary at the best of times, but in the aftermath of the Libor scandal they look wildly misjudged.

‘Banks do have some capacity to withhold performance-related bonuses at their own discretion, and Barclays should certainly think about exercising these powers.’

Barclays last night stressed the awards are linked to performance, so it is not yet clear how much its top brass will receive. It added that over the last five years an average of just under 40 per cent of the maximum was paid.

Jenkins has pledged to deploy special ‘clawback’ powers to recoup deferred bonuses after a spate of scandals, including Libor-rigging and the mis-selling of payment protection insurance. It is not clear if 2010 awards will be affected.

Barclays has attempted to defuse a row over bonuses ahead of its annual report detailing its pay awards in March.

Jenkins forfeited around £1million for last year, while Lucas and Ricci also gave up 2012 bonuses after the bank was fined £290million for manipulating interest rates. But news of huge pay-outs from other years threatens to undermine efforts to break with the past.

Ricci is a hugely divisive figure who helped run the investment bank while traders bragged about manipulating Libor interest rates. Critics see him as the epitome of the aggressive ‘casino’ culture under former boss Bob Diamond.

Lucas has seen his tenure overshadowed by probes into emergency fund-raisings with Qatar investors. He, along with three current and former executives, are being investigated over fees paid as part of the deal. Any windfall for Tom Kalaris, head of stockbroking and investment arm Barclays Wealth, could also prove highly controversial.

The division’s chief operating officer Andrew Tinney quit last month after it emerged he suppressed an explosive dossier which described it as ‘out of control’.

The independent report described a ‘broken culture’ of fear and intimidation under Kalaris, where problems were ignored or buried.

Jenkins could also come under fire if he receives a substantial award. The bank is still counting the cost of the PPI mis-selling scandal which occurred under his watch as the former head of Barclaycard.

A big award for Robert Le Blanc – chief risk officer since 2004 – could expose the bank to criticism.

All the scandals which have left Barclays fighting for its reputation occurred during his tenure.

The 2010 performance-related awards include a long-term incentive plan, which is paid in May next year, and two separate deferred share awards which pay out in equal tranches over three years.

Greece signs out-of-court settlement with Siemens

Πηγή: ekathimerini
August 24 2012

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras signed an agreement on Thursday that means all charges barring criminal ones relating to bribery allegations in the Siemens scandal would be dropped in return for compensation.

The two sides agreed to waive 80 million euros they owed each other and for the German multinational to pay another 90 million euros that will be used to fund state bodies that combat corruption, university research programs, 100 postgraduate scholarships per year and medical equipment for public hospitals. The electronics and electrical engineering company also agreed to invest 100 million euros this year in its Greek branch, Siemens Hellas, which employs 600 people.

The German firm will also invest another 60 million euros in the construction of a new factory that will employ up to 700 people.

The out-of-court settlement was approved by Parliament earlier this year.

Scandal At The IMF: Senior Economist Resigns, Says "Ashamed To Have Had Any Association With Fund At All"

Πηγή: Zero Hedge

By Tyler Durden 

July 20 2012

The rats everywhere are now jumping furiously off the titanic, but few had taken the time to write a letter explaining in detail just how cracked and broken the hull really was. This has now changed, with the departure of Peter Doyle, formerly a division chief in the IMF’s European Department responsible for non-crisis countries and currently an adviser to the Fund. Not content with quietly slinking off the scandal ridden organization which has become the butt of all jokes in the international community, where humor about Lagarde's Louis Vuitton panhandling bag is as pervasive as punchlines about just how incompetent the organization is at actually doing its duty, Doyle has penned the following scathing letter which tears down every myth about the IMF: from its impartiality, to the selection process of its head, to its effectiveness. The letter also contains the following gem: "After twenty years of service, I am ashamed to have had any association with the Fund at all." Pretty much says it all. This is a scandal in the making, and one which may shake to the core the credibility of the IMF in the context of international organization.

Full letter (pdf)

European Department
Washington DC
June 18, 2012

To Mr. Shaalan, Dean of the IMF Executive Board

Today, I addressed the Executive Board for the last time—because I am leaving the Fund.

Accordingly, I wanted first to formally express my deep appreciation to the Swedish, Israeli, and Danish authorities with whom I have worked recently, as well as all others with whom I have worked earlier, for their extraordinary generosity towards me personally.

But I also wanted to take this opportunity to explain my departure.

After twenty years of service, I am ashamed to have had any association with the Fund at all.

This is not solely because of the incompetence that was partly chronicled by the OIA report into the global crisis and the TSR report on surveillance ahead of the Euro Area crisis. Moreso, it is because the substantive difficulties in these crises, as with others, were identified well in advance but were suppressed here. Given long gestation periods and protracted international decision-making processes to head off both these global challenges, timely sustained warnings were of the essence. So the failure of the Fund to issue them is a failing of the first order, even if such warnings may not have been heeded. The consequences include suffering (and risk of worse to come) for many including Greece, that the second global reserve currency is on the brink, and that the Fund for the past two years has been playing catch-up and reactive roles in the last-ditch efforts to save it.

Further, the proximate factors which produced these failings of IMF surveillance—analytical risk aversion, bilateral priority, and European bias—are, if anything, becoming more deeply entrenched, notwithstanding initiatives which purport to address them. This fact is most clear in regard to appointments for Managing Director which, over the past decade, have all-too-evidently been disastrous. Even the current incumbent is tainted, as neither her gender, integrity, or élan can make up for the fundamental illegitimacy of the selection process. In a hierarchical place like this, the implications of those choices filter directly to others in senior management, and via the appointments, fixed term contracts, and succession planning of senior staff, they go on to infuse the organization as a whole, overwhelming everything else. A handicapped Fund, subject to those proximate roots of surveillance failure, is what the Executive Board prefers. Would that I had understood twenty years ago that this would be the choice.

There are good salty people here. But this one is moving on. You might want to take care not to lose the others.

cc. Ms. Nemat Shafik
Mr. Stanley Fischer
Mr. Stephan Ingves
Mr. Benny Andersen
Mr. Alex Gibbs
Mr. Eric Meyer
Mr. Amit Friedman
Mr. Martin Holmberg
Mr. Reza Moghadam
Mr. Mark Plant
Mr. Brad McDonald

Greece to sue former Siemens executives

Former Siemens executive Reinhard Siekaczek was convicted in 2008 for administrating slush funds used to win contracts.

Πηγή: ekathimerini
July 12 2012

Greece is preparing legal action against 10 high-ranking current and former executives of Siemens, the German electronics and engineering giant accused of bribing Greek politicians to secure state contracts, Kathimerini understands.

The suits are expected to be lodged in September against at least 10 German executives including Reinhard Siekaczek, who was convicted in 2008 for administrating slush funds used to win contracts, and Michael Kutschenreuter, the ex-financial head of the company’s telecoms unit who was found guilty in April of breach of trust and abetting bribery after admitting to covering up the slush funds.

It is unclear whether the German executives will also face trial in Greece, where authorities have failed to try the ex-CEO of Siemens Hellas, Michalis Christoforakos, and Volker Jung, a former director of the company. A German court ruled in 2009 that Christoforakos could not be extradited to Greece for trial as he has German and Greek nationality.

Ex-CIA lawyer’s arrest sought for approving drone attacks in Pakistan

(Photo from stealthops.blogspot.com)

Πηγή: RT

Published: 20 July, 2011, 03:57

Human rights lawyers and victims’ relatives are seeking an arrest warrant against a former CIA legal director who allegedly approved drone attacks in Pakistan that killed hundreds.

­The attempt to seek an international arrest warrant for former CIA acting general counsel John Rizzo, 63, is being led by British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith of the advocacy group Reprieve, as well as lawyers in Pakistan.

On Monday, relatives of victims of a covert US drone war against Al Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan filed a complaint with police in the capital.

Rizzo is being pursued after he admitted in an interview with Newsweek magazine that under a practice started by the Bush administration, he had approved one drone attack order a month on targets in Pakistan since 2004.

A study by the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, says that the amount of strikes has quadrupled since US President Barack Obama took office, and estimates that about 2,500 people have been killed in attacks on targets in Pakistan since 2004.

Last year there were 118 attacks after Obama expanded the use of drones in 2009, while 2011 has already seen at least 42.

­“Age of videogame killing”

Using armed drones enables the US to strike targets inside Pakistan, which they legally could not do with piloted military aircraft, says former CIA officer Philip Giraldi.

“Striking a country with which America is not at war means that the whole process is something that is very dubious,” he stated.

The man who approved the attacks is unlikely to stand trial, argues Giraldi.

“This is one of those interesting cases that can go in several directions,” he said. “The US doesn’t cooperate with the International Criminal Court on this kind of case precisely for this reason, so John Rizzo is unlikely to be turned over to a court to face charges against him. But on the other hand, there are some jurisdictions in Europe – Spain, for example – where anyone can walk in and make a case against virtually anyone, claiming that they’ve committed war crimes. And if Mr. Rizzo ever has the misfortune of passing through Spain, he can well be arrested.”
"Drone strikes quadruple the Pakistani Taliban in numbers”

“They acknowledge that they are killing people and they do not even know their names,” claimed US anti-war activist Fred Branfman, who exposed the CIA Secret War in Laos and today writes extensively on US military and foreign policy.

Activists state that those drone strikes have quadrupled the ranks of the Pakistani Taliban because of the anger they have caused. Furthermore, they argue, Pakistani officials are no longer certain about the security of the country’s nuclear weapons, which are already considered to be the least secure in the world.

“The result of this drone strike campaign is vastly increasing the danger in the US of a conventional or a nuclear terrorist attack,” said Branfman.

“By carrying out those drone strike in Pakistan or Somalia, the US is operating extra-legally,” stated Tara Murray, a staff attorney at Reprieve, the advocacy group.

“We have numbers coming from Pakistan that indicate that for every suspected militant that is being killed, 140 innocent civilians die as a result of these strikes,” she added.

News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead

Former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare has been found dead. Photograph: BBC
Death of Sean Hoare – who was first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson knew of hacking – not being treated as suspicious

Πηγή: The Guardian

By Amelia Hill, James Robinson, Caroline Davies
Monday 18 July 2011 18.04 BST

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.

Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home.

Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.

"The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

Hoare first made his claims in a New York Times investigation into the phone-hacking allegations at the News of the World.

He told the newspaper that not only did Coulson know of the phone hacking, but that he actively encouraged his staff to intercept the phone calls of celebrities in the pursuit of exclusives.

In a subsequent interview with the BBC he alleged that he was personally asked by his then-editor, Coulson, to tap into phones. In an interview with the PM programme he said Coulson's insistence that he didn't know about the practice was "a lie, it is simply a lie".

At the time a Downing Street spokeswoman said Coulson totally and utterly denied the allegations and said he had "never condoned the use of phone hacking and nor do I have any recollection of incidences where phone hacking took place".

Sean Hoare, a one-time close friend of Coulson's, told the New York Times the two men first worked together at the Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At the News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of his activities. Coulson "actively encouraged me to do it", Hoare said.

In September last year, he was interviewed under caution by police over his claims that the former Tory communications chief asked him to hack into phones when he was editor of the paper, but declined to make any comment.

Hoare returned to the spotlight last week, after he told the New York Times that reporters at the News of the World were able to use police technology to locate people using their mobile phone signals in exchange for payments to police officers.

He said journalists were able to use a technique called "pinging" which measured the distance between mobile handsets and a number of phone masts to pinpoint its location.

Hoare gave further details about the use of "pinging" to the Guardian last week. He described how reporters would ask a news desk executive to obtain the location of a target: "Within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the news desk would come back and say 'right that's where they are.'"

He said: "You'd just go to the news desk and they'd just come back to you. You don't ask any questions. You'd consider it a job done. The chain of command is one of absolute discipline and that's why I never bought into it, like with Andy saying he wasn't aware of it and all that. That's bollocks."

He said he would stand by everything he had told the New York Times about "pinging". "I don't know how often it happened. That would be wrong of me. But if I had access as a humble reporter … "

He admitted he had had problems with drink and drugs and had been in rehab. "But that's irrelevant," he said. "There's more to come. This is not going to go away."

Hoare named a private investigator who he said had links with the News of the World, adding: "He may want to talk now because I think what you'll find now is a lot of people are going to want to cover their arse."

Speaking to another Guardian journalist last week, Hoare repeatedly expressed the hope that the hacking scandal would lead to journalism in general being cleaned up and said he had decided to blow the whistle on the activities of some of his former News of the World colleagues with that aim in mind.

He also said he had been injured the previous weekend while taking down a marquee erected for a children's party. He said he had broken his nose and badly injured his foot when a relative accidentally struck him with a heavy pole from the marquee.

Hoare also emphasised that he was not making any money from telling his story. Hoare, who has been treated for drug and alcohol problems, reminisced about partying with former pop stars and said he missed the days when he was able to go out on the town.

How bad is the News of the World scandal for David Cameron?

Πηγή: Foreign Policy

Posted By Robert Zeliger  Friday, July 8, 2011 - 4:51 PM 

The implosion of the once mighty tabloid News of the World (NoW) is nothing short of a media tsunami. And the damage doesn't end at Fleet Street -- nor even in the halls of the Murdoch News Corp. empire.

It's reaching all the way to 10 Downing Street, where Prime Minister David Cameron is facing a crisis of leadership like none he's experienced so far.

After all, Cameron has ties to some of the most vilified people in the scandal. He courted Rupert Murdoch in the run-up to last year's election (which helped to ensure his victory). He's friends with Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of the tabloid and current News International chief executive who has become a focal point of criticism for the mess. And he hired Andy Coulson, another former editor of the paper, as his communications director at 10 Downing. This morning, Coulson (who stepped down from his job in January) was arrested for his involvement with the paper's illegal activities.

Those are bad associations to have these days, as the public's anger grows and demands for penance mount.

So how badly damaged is the Cameron brand after this week?

Murdoch defends papers as Cameron pledges hacking probe

Credit: Reuters/Eddie Keogh 

Πηγή: Reuters

By Kate Holton and Jodie Ginsberg

LONDON | Wed Jul 6, 2011 6:17pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch promised full cooperation on Wednesday to resolve a scandal shaking his media empire after British Prime Minister David Cameron promised an inquiry into what he called "disgusting" phone hacking by a newspaper.

Responding in parliament to allegations that the News of the World eavesdropped on voicemail for victims of notorious crimes, including child murders and suicide bombings, Cameron said he was "revolted" and would order inquiries, probably into both the specific case and more widely into Britain's cut-throat media.

The opposition, keen to highlight Cameron's own ties to Murdoch and to two former editors at the eye of the storm, noted that any inquiry would not start, let alone finish, for months if not years. Critics accused the Conservative government of trying to bury the embarrassment of the long-running saga.

Murdoch, whose News International group faces boycotts from advertisers and readers as well as questions over a takeover bid for broadcaster BSkyB, made a rare public statement to say he too found the hacking, and reports of buying tips from police, "deplorable and unacceptable" and would ensure transparency.

But the 80-year-old Australian-born American media magnate made clear he was standing by Rebekah Brooks, the 43-year-old head of his British newspaper operation. She was editor in 2002 when, police say, a News of the World investigator listened to -- and deleted -- voicemails left for the cellphone of missing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered.