The Deleware Court of the Honorable Mary Walrath is beginning to peel back the onion revealing the conspiracy by the FDIC and JP Morgan Chase to fraudiently convey Washington Mutual Bank to JP Morgan Chase in September 2008. This plot, discovery documents reveal, began two years previously with JP Morgan Chase forming "Project West" to begin planning how to aquire Washington Mutual Bank. A very talented reporter for the Peuget Sound Business Journal named Kristin Gind announced this month that she is taking a sabbatical to write a book using documents made public through the recent Senate Special Committee hearings.
These documents put the fdic in the center of this story. It seems the fdic still has a big liability on Fraudulent Conveyence since their charter requires them to maximize the value received for the estate. Even if they continue to play games about the seizure the fdic failed to sell wamu for a fair value due to what seems a defective or corrupt auction process. The fdic also has liability for it's apparent intereference and harmful actions when Wamu was trying to sell itself and on those grounds merit discovery. Now, in court, the fdic is attempting to muddy the waters regarding the wrongful seizure by claiming that the OTS, not the fdic seized the Bank.
We will find out in the next two weeks whether Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan
will capitulate and buy out WAMUQ through a fair settlement offer for the stock or continue to try to push through the deal he made with the Debtors which leaves out the shareholders and the bond holders.
Showing posts with label Jamie Dimon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jamie Dimon. Show all posts
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
The Continuing Saga of JP Morgan and WAMU
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan recently sent a letter to all shareholders of JP Morgan.
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ONE/871752399x0x362440/1ce6e503-25c6-4b7b-8c2e-8cb1df167411/2009AR_Letter_to_shareholders.pdf
For those of you who will read this letter I think you will agree that acquiring Washington Mutual Bank 18 months ago from the FDIC for the paltry 1.9 billion dollars was, by far, the best deal in the history of the banking industry. In fact, some would call it a steal.
He stated in his letter, "Our revenue this year was a record $100
billion, up from $67 billion in 2008. The largeincrease in revenue was due primarily to the inclusion for the full year of WashingtonMutual (WaMu) and the dramatic turnaround in revenue in our Investment Bank."
But what he doesn't tell his stockholders in this letter (but stated in the 10K filed recently) was that JP Morgan may have to give a lot of it back when the Deleware Bankrupscy Court rules on several motions filed by WMI the parent company of WAMU Bank. He agreed with the Debtors in this case to a settlement that at first claimed agreement by the FDIC but was later recanted after the legal scholars at the FDIC realized that Jamie was setting them up to be the fall guy to all the furious Bond and Shareholders that were somehow left out of this Settlement.
Stay tuned, the fat lady is just beginning to warm up.
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ONE/871752399x0x362440/1ce6e503-25c6-4b7b-8c2e-8cb1df167411/2009AR_Letter_to_shareholders.pdf
For those of you who will read this letter I think you will agree that acquiring Washington Mutual Bank 18 months ago from the FDIC for the paltry 1.9 billion dollars was, by far, the best deal in the history of the banking industry. In fact, some would call it a steal.
He stated in his letter, "Our revenue this year was a record $100
billion, up from $67 billion in 2008. The largeincrease in revenue was due primarily to the inclusion for the full year of WashingtonMutual (WaMu) and the dramatic turnaround in revenue in our Investment Bank."
But what he doesn't tell his stockholders in this letter (but stated in the 10K filed recently) was that JP Morgan may have to give a lot of it back when the Deleware Bankrupscy Court rules on several motions filed by WMI the parent company of WAMU Bank. He agreed with the Debtors in this case to a settlement that at first claimed agreement by the FDIC but was later recanted after the legal scholars at the FDIC realized that Jamie was setting them up to be the fall guy to all the furious Bond and Shareholders that were somehow left out of this Settlement.
Stay tuned, the fat lady is just beginning to warm up.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
GM Pension Funds Used Illegally?
The following article was published on the WEB but is so damaging , in my view, to what the administration seems to be advocating with GM's Auto Union dues that I felt it needs to be re-published. The author, Greg Palast, is very convincing, in my opinion.
Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM
by Greg Palast
Monday, June 1, 2009
Screw the autoworkers.
They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.
Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders - led by Morgan and Citibank - expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.
The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.
I smell a rat.
Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.
When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.
But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.
Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replace by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.
Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.
Preventive Detention for Pensions
So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.
In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.
The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."
"The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."
Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.
Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.
Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must
"...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."
By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.
This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.
House of Rubin
Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?
As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).
With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."
Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?
And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term. Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.
("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)
While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars. This is Obama's working class hero.
If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.
It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.
******
Economist and journalist Greg Palast, a former trade union contract negotiator, is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. He is a GM bondholder and card-carrying member of United Automobile Workers Local 1981.
Palast's latest reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now! are collected on the newly released DVD, "Palast Investigates: from 8-Mile to the Amazon - on the trail of the financial marauders." Watch the trailer here.
Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM
by Greg Palast
Monday, June 1, 2009
Screw the autoworkers.
They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.
Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders - led by Morgan and Citibank - expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.
The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.
I smell a rat.
Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.
When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.
But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.
Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replace by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.
Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.
Preventive Detention for Pensions
So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.
In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.
The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."
"The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."
Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.
Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.
Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must
"...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."
By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.
This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.
House of Rubin
Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?
As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).
With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."
Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?
And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term. Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.
("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)
While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars. This is Obama's working class hero.
If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.
It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.
******
Economist and journalist Greg Palast, a former trade union contract negotiator, is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. He is a GM bondholder and card-carrying member of United Automobile Workers Local 1981.
Palast's latest reports for BBC Television and Democracy Now! are collected on the newly released DVD, "Palast Investigates: from 8-Mile to the Amazon - on the trail of the financial marauders." Watch the trailer here.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
How Do You Rob a Bank? Have the FDIC Seize It.
A bunch of angry Washington Mutual Bank shareholders have gotten together and created a website to tell the story of how their Bank was taken away by fraud. here is their news release:
"Washington Mutual Inc. Investors See New Hope For Justice
Avatar Posted by pressrelease2please 2 hours 47 minutes ago (http://www.wamustory.com) View profile
Category: Financial | Tags: banking politics financial washington mutual
For Immediate Release
Houston, TX-
Washington Mutual Shareholders (Stock Symbols: WAMUQ, WAHUQ, WAMPQ, WAMKQ) are experiencing renewed optimism due to recent events involving WMI s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. The Chapter 11 filing followed the unprecedented seizure and fire sale of its banking unit by the FDIC. Through collaborative efforts online, shareholders have uncovered a significant amount of information regarding the seizure of the well-capitalized Washington Mutual bank (found at www.WaMuStory.com). They recently joined together to author this site and share their research findings amongst themselves and the public. The website has a plethora of documents, including links to official government documents regarding WaMu issues, pre and post seizure.
Shareholders have long seen problems with the way this \"secret\" auction (which was not very secret) was handled by the FDIC, and are pleased that an investigation has been requested through the Bankruptcy Court. Elliott Greenleaf and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver and Hedges, the attorneys appointed through lead Chapter 11 legal counsel Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, filed a motion in the bankruptcy court recently asking for a complete investigation of the circumstances surrounding the seizure and sale of WaMu Bank and all activities leading to the destruction of this 119 year old Seattle based institution. This motion was based on another lawsuit filed in Texas which questioned the circumstances of the bank seizure and accused JPMorgan of corruption, breach of confidentiality and other improper activities. Shareholders have long considered the seizure circumstances to be suspect and have written thousands of letters to legislators asking for a complete investigation. Their pleas to Congress seem to have been ignored to date.
At the time of seizure, Washington Mutual had $307 Billion in assets and was sold to JPMorgan for a mere 1.88 Billion dollars within hours by the FDIC. At the time of seizure, Washington Mutual Inc had 4 Billion dollars in a cash account, which has been recently laid claim to by JP Morgan.
In comparison, IndyMac, with only $32 Billion in assets was sold for $13.9 Billion in the following weeks. Indymac had only 33 branch offices as compared to Washington Mutual\'s 2,239 branches and 4,932 branded ATMs.
As a result of this seemingly unfair compensation for WMI assets, WMI attorneys Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have also filed suit against the FDIC seeking proper compensation for the reasonable value of the assets seized by the OTS, and sold by the FDIC in the \"fire sale\". That matter is currently pending in a separate Federal court action.
Washington Mutual Shareholders feel that it is self evident that the sale of WaMu Bank was extremely flawed, and they are expecting the U.S. Federal Court system to right these wrongs. They see these recent court filings as a big step in the right direction."
Contact :
Michael Rozenfeld
Street :Houston
City :Houston
State :TX
Zip/Pin Code: 77024
Country :USA
Phone :512-809-8556
Email :michael.rozenfeld@wamutruth.com
Website :http://www.wamustory.com/
"Washington Mutual Inc. Investors See New Hope For Justice
Avatar Posted by pressrelease2please 2 hours 47 minutes ago (http://www.wamustory.com) View profile
Category: Financial | Tags: banking politics financial washington mutual
For Immediate Release
Houston, TX-
Washington Mutual Shareholders (Stock Symbols: WAMUQ, WAHUQ, WAMPQ, WAMKQ) are experiencing renewed optimism due to recent events involving WMI s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. The Chapter 11 filing followed the unprecedented seizure and fire sale of its banking unit by the FDIC. Through collaborative efforts online, shareholders have uncovered a significant amount of information regarding the seizure of the well-capitalized Washington Mutual bank (found at www.WaMuStory.com). They recently joined together to author this site and share their research findings amongst themselves and the public. The website has a plethora of documents, including links to official government documents regarding WaMu issues, pre and post seizure.
Shareholders have long seen problems with the way this \"secret\" auction (which was not very secret) was handled by the FDIC, and are pleased that an investigation has been requested through the Bankruptcy Court. Elliott Greenleaf and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver and Hedges, the attorneys appointed through lead Chapter 11 legal counsel Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, filed a motion in the bankruptcy court recently asking for a complete investigation of the circumstances surrounding the seizure and sale of WaMu Bank and all activities leading to the destruction of this 119 year old Seattle based institution. This motion was based on another lawsuit filed in Texas which questioned the circumstances of the bank seizure and accused JPMorgan of corruption, breach of confidentiality and other improper activities. Shareholders have long considered the seizure circumstances to be suspect and have written thousands of letters to legislators asking for a complete investigation. Their pleas to Congress seem to have been ignored to date.
At the time of seizure, Washington Mutual had $307 Billion in assets and was sold to JPMorgan for a mere 1.88 Billion dollars within hours by the FDIC. At the time of seizure, Washington Mutual Inc had 4 Billion dollars in a cash account, which has been recently laid claim to by JP Morgan.
In comparison, IndyMac, with only $32 Billion in assets was sold for $13.9 Billion in the following weeks. Indymac had only 33 branch offices as compared to Washington Mutual\'s 2,239 branches and 4,932 branded ATMs.
As a result of this seemingly unfair compensation for WMI assets, WMI attorneys Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have also filed suit against the FDIC seeking proper compensation for the reasonable value of the assets seized by the OTS, and sold by the FDIC in the \"fire sale\". That matter is currently pending in a separate Federal court action.
Washington Mutual Shareholders feel that it is self evident that the sale of WaMu Bank was extremely flawed, and they are expecting the U.S. Federal Court system to right these wrongs. They see these recent court filings as a big step in the right direction."
Contact :
Michael Rozenfeld
Street :Houston
City :Houston
State :TX
Zip/Pin Code: 77024
Country :USA
Phone :512-809-8556
Email :michael.rozenfeld@wamutruth.com
Website :http://www.wamustory.com/
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