Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:51 pm Post subject: Blue Arrow County Natwest trial, City fraud gets green light
1987 Blue Arrow County Natwest trial, green light for City fraud
The three Blue Arrow Manpower rights issue fraudsters sprung from non-jail
Jonathan Cohen, Philip Gibbs, David Reed and Nicholas Wells
Mr Justice McKinnon,
Original judge that presided over deliberately 'bungled' court case Appeal court judges that overturned these three fraud convictions
Lord Justice Mann, sitting with Mr Justice Ognall and Mr Justice Buckley
Britain's most crooked judges ever - lock them up now!
TonyGosling wrote:
The Blue Arrow Trial as mentioned above on the Max Keiser show.
The unofficial true story followed by the official lie
Rowan Bosworth-Davies | Has the UK rediscovered its appetite for prosecuting ‘white collar’ crime?
March 16th, 2012
In the second in a series of guest posts, Rowan Bosworth-Davies, a financial crime consultant and former Scotland Yard detective, provides a historical perspective on the UK authorities’ lack of appetite for prosecuting high level financial crime
Edwin Sutherland, the American sociologist and criminologist (pictured right), is perhaps best known for his 1949 book ‘White Collar Crime’. But it was ten years earlier that he coined the phrase ‘white collar crime’. Back in the late 1930s, this was fairly radical.
At the time, the assumption among politicians and judges was that “respectable” upper echelons of society — professionals, bankers, financiers etc — were incapable of criminal behaviour. Despite Sutherland’s best efforts, I sometimes wonder how much has changed.
There was a brief interlude in UK history when the authorities had no qualms about prosecuting ‘white collar’ crime. In the 1980s, the Serious Fraud Office prosecuted the mainstream bank, County NatWest, a division of NatWest. The main players were convicted of the criminal offence of covering up a failed issue of £873m of new stock (intended to finance the takeover of Manpower).
The scandal became known as the ‘Blue Arrow’ affair. The jury had no difficulty in convicting all the leading defendants, who included some of the ‘great and the good’ of the City at the time. However, for reasons that are almost beyond comprehension, the Court of Appeal overturned the guilty verdicts.
Normally, the Court of Appeal is loathe to overturn a conviction reached in a jury trial. It will consider an appeal against the sentence, and consider an appeal if it can be shown that the judge erred in law. But to overturn a sensibly-arrived at jury conviction is very rare, partly because such an appeal can be so damaging to public policy. Those who remember the ‘Guildford Four’ will recall how long it took to get their convictions challenged.
In the ‘Blue Arrow’ case, the Court of Appeal sat within a few months of the convictions and came to the conclusion that, since the case had taken so long to prosecute, it was impossible that any reasonable jury to reach a sensible verdict, and the convictions were quashed.
This was the most egregious example of people from the upper socio-economic classes being given a ‘get-out-of-jail card’ that I can think of, although I have witnessed other equally appalling efforts to help their kind.
After the ‘Blue Arrow’ case, a friend of mine in the SFO told me that the message had come down from on high that there would never again be any similar kind of prosecution of any City institution or its senior executives. The reason the ‘Blue Arrow’ affair proved so terrifying for the managerial classes and senior financiers was that it demonstrated that ordinary juries could understand the ramifications of complex fraud cases, and that they could convict.
The lawyers in the trial had spent hundred of hours of court time trying to cloud the issue and obfuscate, but the jury saw through that and potted all the defendants that mattered. The question is, in the wake of a disastrous decade of “light touch” regulation, will we see it’s like again?
http://www.ianfraser.org/has-the-uk-rediscovered-its-long-lost-appetit e-for-prosecuting-white-collar-crime/
Blue Arrow trial labelled pounds 40m disaster
GEOFF FROST , Press Association - Wednesday 29 July 1992
THE Blue Arrow fraud trial, which ran up legal bills of pounds 40m, was a 'costly disaster' that must never be repeated, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.
Lord Justice Mann said the year-long Old Bailey trial - the second-longest criminal case in English legal history - was an ordeal for the jury and a daily 'punishment' for the accused.
Its length and complexity were directly attributable to the length and complexity of the indictment faced by the accused, he said. The prosecution had a heavy responsibility not to overload indictments.
The trial judge, Mr Justice McKinnon, did reduce the size of the case, but at a very late stage after prosecution and defence counsel had addressed the jury. He should have split the case into separate triable issues much earlier.
Lord Justice Mann, sitting with Mr Justice Ognall and Mr Justice Buckley, said: 'We think in this case, and with respect to him, the judge should much earlier have used his power of severance to achieve then what he sought too late to do.'
A robust and early use of the power of severance did have disadvantages - a second Blue Arrow trial was still pending. But it was the only power available to limit issues to secure a manageable and fair trial.
'Judges must not be reluctant to exercise their power in order to secure that end but - and importantly - they will seldom have occasion to do so if, when performing their difficult task, the prosecuting authorities frame indictments which have due regard to the limitations of a jury trial.'
The appeal judges were giving their reasons for quashing earlier this month convictions of conspiracy to defraud against four City advisers who stood trial in the Blue Arrow case. The clearing of the four and the earlier acquittal of other defendants means that no one now stands convicted as a result of the trial.
The judges had cleared Jonathan Cohen, 48, David Reed, 44, and Nicholas Wells, 37, all senior executives of County NatWest, the merchant banking arm of the National Westminster Bank, and set aside their 18-month suspended prison sentences.
Martin Gibbs, 62, a stockbroker and former director of UBS Phillips and Drew, also had his conviction and 12-month suspended sentence quashed.
Three other accused and three corporate defendants were acquitted during the trial. The four cleared on appeal were awarded their trial and appeal costs from public funds.
They had been convicted on 14 February this year of conspiring to mislead the markets over the result of the 1987 pounds 837m Blue Arrow rights issue - launched to finance the company's takeover of the larger American employment agency Manpower - by secretly buying shares themselves to raise the take-up level announced to other investors.
The trial judge decided, a month before the jury retired, to restrict the case to the 'late take-up' issue and tell the jurors to ignore 75 per cent of the evidence.
It was that decision that led the appeal judges to intervene. Lord Justice Mann said that the decision to sum up only in regard to late take-up constituted a 'material irregularity' in the course of the trial.
The accused were in no way to blame for the length of the case, Lord Justice Mann stressed. The trial judge himself had realised by 10 January this year that the trial had become unmanageable.
'This trial will rightly be regarded by the public as having been a costly disaster,' Lord Justice Mann said. The jury must have found the case an ordeal and the defendants must have regarded their daily experience of the trial as in itself a punishment.
The Court of Appeal had thought it 'appropriate to consider how the disaster, ordeal and punishment came about in order that a lesson can perhaps be learnt'.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/blue-arrow-trial-labelled-p ounds-40m-disaster-1536262.html
That this House condemns Mr Justice Ognall for his remarks, made when releasing two youths who admitted raping a young girl, that he accepted that they regarded the rape 'as a prank' and that he was 'satisfied that the girl had not suffered any lasting psychological harm'; and calls upon the Lord Chancellor to publicly condemn this outrageous statement.
Quote:
Law Report: Unnecessarily long indictment led to unmanageable trial: Regina v Cohen and others - Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) (Lord Justice Mann, Mr Justice Ognall and Mr Justice Buckley), 28 July 1992
YING HUI TAN , Barrister
Wednesday 29 July 1992
Prosecuting authorities should not overload indictments in a jury trial with inessential particulars, as to do so might result in an unmanageably lengthy and complex trial. The trial judge, who has the ultimate responsibility of ensuring that the indictment is one on which a manageable trial is possible, should at an early stage robustly use his power to sever an indictment in order to secure a manageable and fair trial.
The Court of Appeal gave reasons for quashing on 16 July the four appellants' convictions of conspiracy to defraud.
The appellants, Jonathan Cohen, Philip Gibbs, David Reed and Nicholas Wells, were involved the takeover of Manpower Inc by Blue Arrow plc. They were alleged to have rigged the market to enable the rights issue of Blue Arrow shares to be completed. After dismissal and preparatory hearings which lasted 50 days, Mr Justice McKinnon decided that the four appellants and six others should face an indictment of 19 particulars covering the period of 22 September 1987 to 20 December 1987. He rejected defence proposals that to secure a manageable trial, particulars relating to taking in the share placing and the concealment of holdings should be excluded, and the period should be limited to 28 and 29 September, when it was alleged that an agreement to effect a late take-up of shares was made.
The trial started on 11 February 1991, and the jury retired on 11 February 1992, the 184th day. The prosecution case, which included 94 witnesses, lasted until 30 July 1991, when the jury left court until 14 October. Submissions of no case to answer or that the trial had become so unmanageable that its continuance would be an abuse of process were made. The submissions of abuse were rejected.
The defence evidence lasted from 14 October to 21 November. Closing speeches concluded on 17 December. On 19 December the court adjourned until 14 January. Submissions were made and the jury returned on 6 February after an absence, apart from one day, of 51 days.
Mr Justice McKinnon rejected defence submissions for directed acquittals and proceeded with a summing-up limited to the late take-up only. He amended the indictment by excluding all particulars other than those relating to the late take-up. He referred to only 23 of the prosecution witnesses and to only 68 pages out of the 956 pages of exhibits. The summing-up took three days.
Jeremy Roberts QC and David Perry (Richards Butler); Anthony Hooper QC and Simon Mehigan (Titmuss Sainer & Webb); Vivian Robinson QC and Alexander Cameron (Peters & Peters); Richard Du Cann QC and Michael Bromley-Martin (Macfarlanes) for the appellants; Nicholas Purnell QC, Jonathan Harvie QC, Michael Bowes and Napier Miles (SFO) for the Crown.
LORD JUSTICE MANN, giving the judgment of the court, said that the defendants were not in any way at fault in contributing to the length of the proceedings. The basis on which the judge summed up was one fundamentally different from the basis on which counsel addressed the jury, and a defendant was entitled to have his counsel address the jury on the case as it was to be left to them. There was an even more fundamental objection to the course taken by the judge. The jury were left with a large part of the evidence which had an undetermined and questionable relevance to the one issue which was isolated for their decision.
By January 1992, the only course open to the judge was to discharge the jury. The awesome time-scale of the trial, the multiplicity of issues, the distance between evidence, speeches and retirement and the two periods of absence by the jury (amounting to 126 days) combined to destroy a basic assumption. That assumption was that a jury determined guilt or innocence upon evidence which they were able both to comprehend and remember, and upon which they had been addressed at a time when the parties could reasonably expect the speeches to make an impression upon the deliberation.
The length and complexity of the trial were directly attributable to the length and complexity of the indictment. The complexity of the indictment was proved to be unnecessary, for there was a central issue. The summing-up demonstrated that the appellants could have been tried manageably and fairly. This was not an example of the unprosecutable allegation.
An indictment charging a conspiracy must give particulars but they must not be more than was necessary having regard to the limitations imposed by a jury trial. Restraint must be exercised by the prosecution in the adduction of evidence. A lack of restraint could be corrected by the trial judge expressing his view that the evidence, albeit relevant, was inessential and had a volume and complexity which would threaten to prejudice a manageable and fair trial.
The prosecution had a heavy responsibility not to overload the indictment. The trial judge had the ultimate responsibility of ensuring that the indictment was one on which a manageable trial was possible and to achieve that end he could use his power of severance. The problem presented by the overloaded indictment could be solved only by a robust and early use of the judge's power of severance. Judges must not be reluctant to exercise their power to secure a manageable and therefore fair trial but would seldom have occasion to do so if the prosecuting authorities framed indictments which had due regard to the limitations of a jury trial.
The appeals would be allowed on the ground that the decision to sum up only in regard to the late take-up constituted a material irregularity in the course of the trial.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2013 1:48 pm Post subject:
former financial editor of the Scottish Sunday Herald now London based blogger Ian Fraser on the Big Bang open season on fraud indicated by the Court Of Appeal overturning four fraud convictions in the County NatWest Blue Arrow rights issue where dealers fraudulently misrepresented the share price. European Central Bank (ECB), European Union (EU) & International Monetary Fund (IMF) or Troika impose one off tax of between 6% & 10% on Cypriot bank accounts in exchange for bailout. Blue Arrow, County Nat West trial, rights issue for Manpower buyout; financial bribes for Libor rigging. Libor ‘Rain Man’ dealer Tom Hayes was known to be the best Libor fixer in the business. Hayes' pay package more than doubled from $2m to $5m when he moved from UBS to Citi bank, however, he was fired by Citi in September 2010 and in December 2012 he was arrested by London's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and bailed without charge. Separately, he was charged with wire fraud, price-fixing and conspiracy by the US Department of Justice and his extradition requested. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Hayes is now turning queen's evidence, ‘singing like a canary’, and seeking to prove to the authorities that Libor rigging was condoned at the highest levels at his former employers. Jennifer Arcuri, a close friend of Hayes, said he is helping police with their inquiries. He believes he's innocent, Arcuri told the WSJ. She added that trying to rig Libor was common industry practice. It was like spanking children in the 1970s – condoned from the top. Trader Roger Darin also charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and an antitrust violation; financial press too close to the city; Cyprus and contagion; the ECB as Europe’s feudal overlord.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCHnLIikY1k _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
The Libor scandal seems to be waking people up to manipulation and fraud by the big banks.
There are many other types of fraud they’ve engaged in as well …
Here is a partial list:
Committing massive and pervasive fraud both when they initiated mortgage loans and when they foreclosed on them (and see this)
Pledging the same mortgage multiple times to different buyers. See this, this, this, this and this
Cheating homeowners by gaming laws meant to protect people from unfair foreclosure
Charging veterans unlawful mortgage fees
Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this, this and this
Cooking their books (and see this)
Bribing and bullying ratings agencies to inflate ratings on their risky investments
Pushing investments which they knew were terrible, and then betting against the same investments to make money for themselves. See this, this, this, this and this
Engaging in unlawful “frontrunning” to manipulate markets. See this, this, this, this, this and this
Engaging in unlawful “Wash Trades” to manipulate asset prices. See this, this and this
Otherwise manipulating markets. And see this
Shaving money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide. Details here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here andhere
Participating in various Ponzi schemes. See this, this and this
Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold . And raiding allocated gold accounts
Laundering money for drug cartels. See this, this, this and this (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis)
Laundering money for terrorists
Owning and largely running the Federal Reserve … which is itself arguably a Ponzi scheme
But at least the big banks do good things for society, like loaning money to Main Street, right?
Actually:
The big banks no longer do very much traditional banking. Most of their business is from financial speculation. For example, less than 10% of Bank of America’s assets come from traditional banking deposits. Instead, they are mainly engaged in financial speculation and derivatives. (and see this)
The big banks have slashed lending since they were bailed out by taxpayers … while smaller banks have increased lending. See this, this and this
A huge portion of the banks’ profits comes from taxpayer bailouts. For example, 77% of JP Morgan’s net income comes from taxpayer subsidies
The big banks are literally killing the economy … and waging war on the people of the world
And our democracy and republican form of government as well
Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.
← CA CAFR: Assemblymember Portantino Chief of Staff promises public statementFrederick Douglass advises today’s slaves to the 1% on Independence Day →
Washington's Blog _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
By Helen Cahill, Financial Mail On Sunday
21:01, 08 Dec 2018
The City is gearing up for a manic night on Tuesday following the vote on Brexit
Banks, stockbrokers and advisers are braced for a night of chaos
The outcome of the vote is due after the London stock market closes on Tuesday
City traders are gearing up for a caffeine-fuelled all-nighter as investors grapple with the fallout from the crucial vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
ADVERTISEMENT
Banks, stockbrokers and advisers are braced for a night of chaos on trading floor.
The vote will be held late on Tuesday, with the outcome due after the London stock market closes.
Pressure: Barclays and JP Morgan have both called on bankers to stay late into the night to make sure clients can continue to trade stock futures and currency as the result comes in +5
Pressure: Barclays and JP Morgan have both called on bankers to stay late into the night to make sure clients can continue to trade stock futures and currency as the result comes in
Bank of England issues recession warning over no-deal Brexit
Loaded: 0%Progress: 0%00:00
Play
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration Time 0:00
Fullscreen
Barclays and JP Morgan have both called on bankers to stay late into the night to make sure clients can continue to trade stock futures and currency as the result comes in.
If events drag on to the early hours, JP Morgan’s teams in the New York office will take over from London colleagues.
In Barclays’ investment bank, traders will be in the office earlier on Tuesday to prepare ahead of the vote, while analysts and economists will be on standby to brief clients.
Currency trading will be the focus overnight as markets deliver a verdict on what the vote means for the UK economy.
1
shares
RELATED ARTICLES
Markets plunge in global sell off: FTSE sinks to a two-year low after arrest of Huawei boss sparks trade war panic
Deal or no deal: The UK shares to back for a Brexit agreement bounce - or to defend your wealth if there's deadlock
Brexit-proof your finances: Prices might be set to go up but here's eight easy steps you can take that should save you hundreds - deal or no-deal!
Brexit Plan B: How are supermarkets preparing for a 'no deal' and is there really a risk that fresh food will rot at the borders while shelves run dry?
One source at a major spreadbetting firm, which allows individual investors to bet on market movements, said last night they would be ordering pizzas to keep staff from going hungry through the night. They have also booked out rooms at a hotel next door so traders can take short naps during quieter periods.
Traders at Samuel & Co Trading have even set up a mini golf course to keep staff entertained and will bring sleeping bags into the office.
On Wednesday, domestic stocks will take centre stage as traders analyse the political fallout, the chances of a no-deal Brexit or even a General Election, which might lead to a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn.
How will the Brexit deal vote affect business? A run-down of the most likely scernarios +5
How will the Brexit deal vote affect business? A run-down of the most likely scernarios
Carney: 'British businesses are unprepared for a no-deal Brexit'
Loaded: 0%Progress: 0%00:00
Play
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration Time 0:00
Fullscreen
Investment platforms such as AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown are gearing up for a spike in online traffic when the market opens on Wednesday.
Danny Cox, of Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘We are increasing staffing levels on our helpdesk and support functions on the Wednesday morning by around 40 per cent to cater for what could be a very busy opening period of trading.’
Away from the trading floor, bankers and consultants are teeing-up to help clients plan for the weeks ahead.
Lloyds bankers will be staying late on Tuesday and coming in early on Wednesday to monitor events and take check-in calls with any concerned clients.
ADVERTISEMENT
Accounting giant PwC is hosting internal briefings to make sure its consultants are up to date on events so they can advise clients, both in the UK and abroad.
While PwC hasn’t made any specific predictions about how the vote will pan out, the organisation has spent time scenario planning so that it is prepared for all possible outcomes and can inform clients through webcasts, briefing notes and newsletters sent out as events unfold.
James Stewart, KPMG’s head of Brexit, said there had been a significant pick-up in calls in recent weeks as clients try to understand what the vote means for their businesses.
Stewart added: ‘We are seeing much more client activity around Brexit over the past two weeks. That’s a mix of small businesses who have only just realised they need to act, and larger businesses who are activating their plans.’
STOCK MARKET WATCH LIST
Ted Baker boss Ray Kelvin hit the headlines when the retailer appointed a law firm to investigate its ‘hugging culture’, but hedge funds aren’t showing his company’s shares much love.
They were already betting against the fashion brand, but raised their short positions in the FTSE 250 firm on Monday after the hugging scandal.
Data from analyst IHS Markit shows a notable increase in short interest positions from 6.6 per cent on Friday last week to 7.4 per cent on Monday in a wager worth about £50 million. Short-sellers, who in this case include New York-headquartered BlackRock and London-based Marshall Wace, borrow shares, sell them and then buy them back at what they hope is a lower price, pocketing the difference in the process.
Just minutes before the markets closed on Friday, the company revealed that Kelvin was to take a ‘leave of absence’ while the allegations are investigated.
The share price took a sharp dive, but could have further to go when markets reopen tomorrow morning, meaning that the short-sellers could cash in again.
Apart from its own shareholders, the other main victim of Thomas Cook’s recent woes has been rival TUI.
Thomas Cook blamed the warm UK summer for stopping people travelling abroad in search of sun. But scribblers at City broker Bernstein think TUI is a very different business with cruises and hotels that are less reliant on one or two crucial seasons.
They reckon TUI’s annual results on Thursday could kick-start the shares after a slump of nearly 40 per cent since May.
Bernstein says the shares are so cheap that any new investors would be getting TUI’s tour division for free.
If Purplebricks, the so-called hybrid estate agent, was one of the shares to own last year after a stunning stock market performance, then it was one to sell in 2018.
The shares tanked by about 60 per cent amid a slowdown in the UK market, even though it expanded abroad.
Rival Emoov, which earlier this year merged with Sarah Beeny’s Tepilo and online lettings agency Urban, went into administration last week, underlining the scale of the challenge for online agents.
Purplebricks reveals first-half results on Thursday. Could it perhaps decide to snap up Emoov’s property listings which are up for grabs? _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Chat
Usergroups
Calendar
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
