Source: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?rubrique181
Timestamp: 2014-09-01 18:34:07
Document Index: 287423953

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 9', 'art 8', 'art 7', 'art 5', 'art 4', 'art 3', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art 6', 'art 5']

Latest addition : 1 September.
Daniel Bensa�d archive
Last part of the series: The Banks and the �Too Big to Jail� Doctrine (Part 9)
1 September, by �ric Toussaint
We all know the saying �Too big to fail.� In managing the crisis the banks have caused, the governments of the industrialised countries have adopted a new doctrine that might be summed up as �Too big to jail.�
Series: Banks and the �Too big to jail� doctrine (Part 8)
In 2001, the Dexia Group (Dexia SA) took over the Israeli bank Otzar Hashilton Hamekomi. It has been disclosed that this subsidiary � now called Dexia Israel � finances Israeli colonies in the Palestinian territories [1]which means Dexia is involved in the occupation of Palestine. As the platform �Palestine occup�e � Dexia impliqu�e( Occupied Palestine - Dexia Involved)� says, �financing these colonies contravenes international law, in particular article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention, which states, ’The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territory it occupies.’� [2]
Series: The banks and the �Too Big to Jail� doctrine (Part 7)
31 August, by �ric Toussaint
Another example of the �Too Big to Jail� doctrine: International tax evasion and fraud organised by UBS, Switzerland�s biggest bank.
UBS, which had to be saved from failure in October 2008 by massive injections of Swiss public money, was involved in the LIBOR manipulation scandal, the currency markets manipulation scandal (UBS is the subject of several inquiries by controlling authorities in Hong Kong, US, the UK, and in Switzerland) and the abusive sale of structured Mortgage-Backed (...)
Series : The banks and the �too big to jail� doctrine (Part 5)
Series : The banks and the �too big to jail� doctrine (Part 4)
The British bank HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) employs 260, 000 people, has offices in 75 countries, and 54 million customers. [3]
From its earliest days, it has been involved in the international narcotics trade. It was founded in the wake of the British victories in the Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) against China. These two wars were very important to the strengthening of the British Empire and the century and a half waning of China. Through the Opium Wars, the British Empire forced China to accept opium importations coming from British India. China tried to oppose this commerce, but British arms, backed by Washington, proved stronger. London established a colony in Hong Kong in 1865, where HSBC was created by a Scottish merchant specializing in the opium trade— the basis of 70% of Hong Kong trade with the Indies.
Series: The banks and the �too big to jail� doctrine (Part 3)
30 August, by �ric Toussaint
The British bank HSBC, which employs 260, 000 people worldwide, is present in 75 countries, and claims to have 54 million customers [4] is another example of the �Too Big to Jail� phenomenon. [5] Over the last ten years, HSBC has laundered $881 million [6] for Mexican and Columbian drug cartels that are responsible for tens of thousands of firearm related assassinations. These relations continue in spite of dozens of warnings from different US government agencies including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The profits from this business are so important that not only does HSBC continue, but it has also opened specialized services in its Mexico offices where drug dealers may simply hand in stocks of cash for cleaning. [7]
Series: The banks and the �too big to jail� doctrine (Part 2)
From 2010 to 2013, US authorities made agreements with banks, not to prosecute them in the home mortgage and illegal foreclosures scandal. Instead, they merely had to pay a small fine. Since the outbreak of the crisis in 2006-2007, more than 14 million families have been evicted from their homes — at least 500,000 illegally. With help from social movements such as Strike Debt [8], many victims have become organized to resist the sheriffs and refuse these evictions. In addition, thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the banks.
Series: The banks and the �too big to jail� doctrine (Part 1)
Banks and the New �Too Big to Jail� Doctrine
We all know the saying, �Too big to fail�. The way governments have managed the crisis caused by the banks has given rise to, �Too big to jail,� [9] which is equally poetic! [10] Although the US government let Lehman Bros. go to the wall in September 2008, no other bank has been closed or broken-up, no directors have been condemned to prison [11]. The only exception in the western world is Iceland, where the courts have put three bank directors in prison. Larus Welding, the CEO of Glitnir, Iceland’s third biggest bank at the time, which went bankrupt in 2008, was condemned, in December 2012, to nine months in prison. Sigurdur Einarsson and Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, the two principal directors of Kaupthing [12] were condemned to five years and five and a half years in prison in December 2013. [13]
Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF : 70th anniversary (Part 6)
26 August, by �ric Toussaint
The United States cancelled the debts of some of its allies. The most obvious instance of this kind was the way the German debt was largely cancelled by the 1953 London Agreement. In order to make sure that the economy of West Germany would thrive and thus become a key element of stability in the Atlantic bloc, the creditor allies led by the United States made major concessions to German authorities and corporations - concessions that went beyond debt relief. A comparison between the way West Germany was treated after WWII and the current attitude to developing countries or to Greece today is a telling story.
Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF: 70th anniversary (Part 5)
25 August, by �ric Toussaint
As its initial name indicates (International Bank for reconstruction and development), the World Bank (WB) had two main objectives:
1. bring financial support to the reconstruction of the countries that had been devastated by the Second World War;
2. grant loans to contribute to the development of backward countries (as developing countries were then called). The US, that call the music at the WB and on the international scene, decided that they would do without the WB for their reconstruction mission in Europe and unilaterally set up a large financial programme intended to restore the European productive apparatus in the countries within their orbit.
100th Anniversary of The Woman�s Dreadnought
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A Plea for an Ecological Reconstruction of Marxism Struggle for Self-Determination of the Bangsamoro Revolutionary Fronts: A Historical Perspective and Current Realities
The Left against Debt-tatorship In the eye of the storm: the debt crisis in the European Union
Marxisms, theory, yesterday and today Marxism and Feminism
Seventy years since the formation of the Fourth International Has working-class consciousness collapsed?
Footnotes[1] M. David Kapah, director of Dexia Israel, made this explicit declaration before the Knesset finances commission on 19 June 2007.
[2] http://www.intal.be/files/DEXIA_PLATFORM_PLATE-FORME.pdf (in French)[3] Official site: http://www.hsbc.com/about-hsbc[4] See official site: http://www.hsbc.com/about-hsbc
[5] See: Banks and the New �’ed �12.5bn�,g at conferences tation markswe work on the final check we know what to compare it to...Too Big to Jail� Doctrine
[6] HSBC has also had dealings with a Saudi bank suspected of financial collaboration with Al Qaida. It is accused by the US justice of having transgressed embargo restrictions. see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/hsbc-judge-approves-1-9b-drug-money-laundering-accord.html and http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-us-money-laundering
[7] Matt Taibbi, �Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail. How HSBC hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it,� 14 February 2013, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214[8] Strike Debt, �United States : The Debt Resisters� Operations Manual�, 25 March 2014, http://cadtm.org/The-Debt-Resisters-Operations[9] The author thanks Daniel Munevar, economist at the CADTM, who produced a very useful and concise preliminary study on the subject and authorised the easy use of his work. I have built on his research. See the original article by Daniel Munevar, � La doctrine �trop grandes pour �tre condamn�es� ou comment les banques sont au-dessus des lois �, 20 September 2013, www.cadtm.org/La-doctrine-trop-grandes-pour-etre (in French or Spanish)
[10] The English-speaking media have been using this phrase for about two years : see for exemple: Abc News, "Once Again, Is JPMorgan Chase Too Big to Jail?", 7 January 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/madoff-ponzi-scheme-prosecutors-find-jpmorgan-chase-big/story?id=21448264 or Forbes, "Why DOJ Deemed Bank Execs Too Big To Jail", 29 July 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedkaufman/2013/07/29/why-doj-deemed-bank-execs-too-big-to-jail/
[11] Another way of saying that no bank has had it’s obligatory licence for banking activities revoked.
[12] The failure of its �Icesave� subsidiary in the UK and the Netherlands caused a diplomatic crisis between these two coutries and Iceland. This crisis is still ongoing since the two countries are attempting to bring the case before Icelandic courts in spite of the judgement, without possible appeal, by the AELE court that ruled in favour of Iceland in January 2013. See Financial Times, �Iceland premier repels Icesave lawsuit�, 12 February 2014.
[13] The Financial Times said 13 December 2013, �Iceland, almost uniquely in the western world, has launched criminal cases against the men who used to lead its three main banks that collapsed after the global financial crisis in 2008 after collectively becoming 10 times the size of the island�s economy.� See: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/eab58f7e-6345-11e3-a87d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2thdbsViQ
In Iraq, the militant group Islamic State (formerly ISIS) has spent several weeks carrying out massacres of Arab Shiites, Turkoman Shiites, Assyro-Chaldees, Yazidis, Shabaks and Sunnites who refuse to swear loyalty to them. In all cases women are the first victims of persecutions, collective rapes, mutilations� - read article... Fourth International
Solidarity Declaration with Palestine August 2014
This statement was unanimously adopted at the 31st youth camp in political solidarity with the Fourth International at Commentry France on 9 August 2014. - read article... | template | Sign In | Site Map | RSS 2.0