JPMorgan settlement with SEC worth over $700M

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/JPMorgan-settlement-with-SEC-apf-3297524178.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=

How convenient, I believe if it was you or I who had done this jail time would have ensued. I stopped counting how many of these "pay off the problem" deals have been brokered.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to a settlement worth more than $700 million over federal regulators' charges that it made unlawful payments to friends of public officials to win municipal bond business in Jefferson County, Ala.


The scandal over the county's $3.9 billion debt has pushed it to the brink of filing what would be the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday announced the settlement with JPMorgan, which canceled interest-rate swap contracts with the county worth $700 million in March.

The Wall Street bank did not admit or deny the SEC allegations in agreeing to pay a $25 million civil fine, a $50 million payment to the county and to forfeit $647 million in termination fees it claims the county owes from the canceled swap agreements.

The SEC also accused two former managing directors of JPMorgan, Charles LeCroy and Douglas MacFaddin, of securities law violations. The agency is seeking unspecified restitution from them. MacFaddin will contest the charges.

The SEC alleged that JPMorgan, LeCroy and MacFaddin made about $8 million in undisclosed payments to close friends of several Jefferson County commissioners. Starting in July 2002, LeCroy and MacFaddin solicited the county for a $1.4 billion sewer bond deal.

Swayed by the payments, the county commissioners voted to select JPMorgan's securities division as managing underwriter of the bond offerings and its affiliated bank as swap provider for the transactions, the SEC said.

JPMorgan failed to disclose any of the unlawful payments or conflicts of interest in the bond offering documents, but passed on the cost of the payments by charging the county higher interest rates on the swap transactions, according to the SEC.

Madoff taped telling colleagues how to deal with regulators

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/10/madoff.tape/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Nothing like the truth straight from the horses mouth.


So began a phone call in which convicted swindler Bernard Madoff told colleagues how to dance around questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to an audiotape and transcript released Wednesday by the Massachusetts secretary of state's office.

"You know, you don't have to be too brilliant with these guys, because you don't have to be," Madoff said, referring to SEC investigators

SEC allows Madoff to settle civil charges

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/930b13ae-5ac9-11de-8c14-00144feabdc0.html

We're living in the Twilight Zone. Were right is wrong and wrong is fine.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday agreed to allow Bernard Madoff to settle civil fraud charges without admitting to any wrong-doing.

Mr Madoff, who in March pleaded guilty to 11 charges related to his $64bn Ponzi scheme, is scheduled to be sentenced to a long prison term this month. Victims have been lobbying the judge to impose the maximum sentence possible