| Seven Banks Under Investigation for Global Interest Rate Scandal by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog August 16th, 2012 Seven international banks have been served with subpoenas over the global interest setting scandal. Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS – have been asked to provide relevant “documents and communications” to the New York attorney-general. |
| Private Hedge Fund "Alpha" Surveys Allow Wealthy Clients to Profit From "Insider" Views by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog July 17th, 2012 BlackRock and Two Sigma Investments – both major hedge funds - have been conducting regular private surveys of brokers for wealthy clients. The practice has raised red flags because of Morgan Stanley's role in the Facebook stock market flotation, as well as insider trading scandals at Goldman Sachs. |
| Obama's Tax Haven Reform: Chump Change by Charlie Cray, Special to CorpWatch June 15th, 2009 In early May, the Obama administration announced plans to eliminate the advantages that multinationals have over domestic corporations as to the tax treatment of reinvested profits. K Street corporate lobbyists haven’t squealed so loudly since they lost their three martini lunches. The uproar draws attention away from the fact that U.S. multinationals enjoy an effective tax rate of just 2.4 percent on billions of dollars in foreign active earnings. |
| Mexico’s Other Crisis: Foreign Banks by Kent Paterson, Special to CorpWatch May 15th, 2009 The worldwide financial crisis is hitting people in the Global South with particular venom, and disaster profiteering is alive and well. Take Mexico. While entities like Citigroup-owned Banamex get away with charging Mexican credit account-holders usurious interest rates of up to 100 percent, Banamex itself turned nearly $1 billion in profits in 2008. |
| An Uncomfortable Spotlight in Davos by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch January 31st, 2008 The CEOs of three-quarters of the world's 100 largest companies have just completed an uncomfortable weekend at the tiny Swiss ski resort of Davos, while their companies' share prices nosedived on global stock markets, amid concern that the U.S. economy is staggering towards recession. |