Soros fails to defeat conviction for insider trading

[emad]

March 25, 2005

Times
From Adam Sage in Paris

GEORGE SOROS, the billionaire investor, yesterday failed in his appeal in Paris against an insider trading conviction that he fears will destroy his reputation.

The Paris Appeal Court upheld a €2.2 million fine for using privileged information during a botched corporate raid on the Société Générale bank in 1988. The fine is equivalent to the profits Mr Soros, 74, made from the transaction.

The Hungarian-born financier was not in court to hear the ruling, but Maître Jean-Michel Darois, his lawyer, said he would appeal to France’s highest tribunal, la Cour de Cassation. “After a bad inquiry that has taken such as long time, we could only expect a bad decision,” he said.

At the hearing last month, Mr Soros, who helped to break the pound with his speculative attacks on it in 1992, pleaded with the appeal court judges to quash his conviction. He said: “My reputation is at stake. I have many enemies all over the world, not only in America but in the former Soviet Union and in parts of Asia. The conviction by the lower court was a gift to my enemies and they have already used it.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1540900,00.html

Maybe he and Martha Stewart can write a book together to pay off all those fines....

[chlamor]

1. His Reputation?

The confidence placed in Soros by some liberals is misplaced. That Open (Market cough-cough) Society is a front for stage managed color-coded soft sell imperialism. With a touch of a button Soros has destroyed economies. No big deal except for the children who starved to death as their communities were destroyed by the pirranhas of the Neo-Liberal free for all of which Soros is a leading card carrying member. No sympathy from me George. I'm sure you'll have lobster with your crocodile tears.

[Demit]

2. And a most expensive whine :)

[Straight Shooter]

3. This is why I couldn't understand all the appeals to Soros from DU'ers

I wanted him away from liberal issues, as far as big contributions. In the world of economics, his reputation was tarnished a long time ago.

Of course, if only we could have a big-time right-winger-dinger go down, too, for example Murdoch.

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. Because he has $$$ and he doens't like Bush

[zann725]

21. And that's why they brought "Martha" down. She was a Dem, and RICHIE RICH

These Repugs just don't quit, do they...until they bring everyone into submission...no matter how rich and/or powerful.

Did anyone also notice the "bottom line" to Martha's imprisonment? They appointed someone to run Martha's kingdom. And the woman they chose was from ABC (the network that Casey's built? A coincidence?) So they've corporately castrated Martha...even though it looks like she still has power, she's now essentially a figurehead.

There's a lot of money there to be skimmed. As obviously there is with Soros too.

[cosmicdot]

17. it's strange ... he supposedly doesn't like shrub** ...

however, he likes poppy's the Carlyle Group enough to invest in it ... and, the Carlyle Group profits from the policies of shrub's White House cabal ... I think he likes to play on both sides of the fence ...

one has to visit the waybackmachine's search engine to see an early Carlyle website

The Global Network
The sophisticated nature of Carlyle's over 100 global investors yields many non-competitive and strategic corporate acquisitions. Many of our transactions flow through a pipeline of global investors, each with a local geographic perspective. Carlyle considers the following premier private equity investors, among others, as investment partners with longstanding relationships:

American International Group ("AIG")
Bank of America
Bank Austria
Bank Indosuez
Bank of New York
Bankers Trust
Boeing
CalPERS
Champion International
Chase Manhattan
Citicorp
Credit Lyonnais
Credit Suisse
Dresdner Bank
Equitable Companies
Florida State Board of Administration
Gannett Company
General Motors Investment Management Corp.
Government of Singapore Investment Corp.
IKEA
Kuwait Investment Authority
Los Angeles County Retirement Association
Michigan Department of Treasury
NYNEX
NationsBank
Northrop Grumman Corp.
Northwestern Mutual Life
Pacific Telesis Group
Soros Capital
Swiss Reassurance Corp.
University of Chicago
University of Texas

http://web.archive.org/web/19990208020830/http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/ http://makeashorterlink.com/?C3DB520CA

while there, found this gem: "The Carlyle Group is the official Advisor to the Saudi Economic Offset Program."

and, this:

"R. K. Mellon Family
In addition to its own unique network of relationships, Carlyle directly benefits from the equally unique network of its minority owner, the Richard King Mellon Family. The R. K. Mellon Family is one of the nation's oldest and most respected investors and allows Carlyle to share in its substantial deal generating capacity. Among the companies which the R. K. Mellon Family helped found are The Mellon Bank, Gulf Oil, Alcoa, and First Boston. Currently the R. K. Mellon Family has extensive investments throughout the U.S. and international markets, as does the Richard King Mellon Foundation."

[zara]

4. George Soros has done more for human freedom

than any individual in the last 20 years, except perhaps Gorby.

[chlamor]

6. Maybe that is why we are not so free

"As a market participant, I don't need to be concerned with the consequence of my actions"-George Soros



Here is more:
George Soros, is known as a Hungarian émigré philanthropist, a proponent of human rights and the “open society,” and, just incidentally, a financier ---one of the richest men in the world. Soros recently criticized George W. Bush saying in an article in the Financial Times of London that his administration’s Iraq policies were “fundamentally wrong” and that they are premised on the “false ideology that U.S. might gave it the right to impose its will on the world.” Many of us in the peace movement would say: “he got that right!” We might be inclined to praise him and to believe that this confirms that he really is a “do-gooder”—an image, by the way, that he carefully cultivates, especially through various NGOs. In fact numerous non-profit organizations have received funds from his foundation because they have bought into that perception.

But let’s take a closer look to see what is motivating Soros. Neil Clark, writing in an incisive article the New Statesman (June 2, 2003), points out that Soros “made billions out of the Eastern currency crash of 1997,” and that he was fined last year “for insider trading by a court in France.” In fact currency speculation is his modus operandi and if this contradicts his pronouncements against “market fundamentalism” and in favor of “civil society, ” well, so be it. In fact, Clark reported that when queried about the turmoil his speculation caused to Far Eastern economies in 1997, Soros replied: “As a market participant, I don’t need to be concerned with the consequences of my actions.”

<snip>

But all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. What of the NGOs Soros established and finances? Who are the other leaders of these groups? Clark informs us that at Human Rights Watch, for example, there is Morton Abramowitz, U.S. assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research from 1985-1989` and now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; Warren Zimmerman former ambassador “whose spell in Yugoslavia coincided with the break up of that country”; and Paul Goble, director of communications “at the CIA-created Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (which Soros also funds).”

<snip>

How does this play out where Soros is concerned? As Clark points out, “Soros is angry not at Bush’s aims---of expanding Pax Americana and making the world safe for global capitalists like himself—but with the crass and blundering way Bush is going about it. By making U.S. ambitions so clear, the Bush gang has committed the cardinal sin of giving the game away. For years, Soros and his NGOs have gone about their work extending the boundaries of the ‘free world’ so skillfully that hardly anyone noticed. Now a Texan redneck and a gang of overzealous neo-cons have blown it”

Soros’ way is to use a few billion dollars, some NGOs and a “nod and wink from the U.S. State department” to bring down foreign governments that are “bad for business” to seize a nation’s assets, and even get thanked for your ‘benevolence,’” according to Clark. This method has worked for Soros and his cohorts.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/TAL307A.html

[savannahana]

7. follow the money into the maze, or labyrinth...

& find more rabbit holes.

thanks to a friend who loves to nose out these connections,
my Soros-blinders came off last fall

good post, chlamor - thanks!

[Iowa]

10. Excellent post chlamor!

I didn't know any of this, but had my suspicions. I question whether it's even possible to become a billionaire without being an complete a**hole at the core. And what kind of a person would hold on to so much money when there is so much suffering in the world?

[fedsron2us]

13. Soros is no friend of the ordinary working man

Those who think otherwise are simply deluding themselves. He is involved in loads of dubious financial activities. There is a a long running scandal in the UK involving the Blair government's sale of state property to the Soros owned Mapeley company

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2263208.stm

[Robbien]

15. "Has committed the cardinal sin of giving the game away."

yep.

Without all this Bush Bluster very few would be aware that the US foreign policy's intent is "to bring down foreign governments that are “bad for business” to seize a nation’s assets, and even get thanked for your ‘benevolence,’”

[Frederik]

12. Oh please

[TexasSissy]

16. True. We cannot know his intentions. But we know the fruits of his

labors...and he "worked hard" against the neocons at a time that many did not. And he had the bucks to put where his mouth was.

I heard a speech by him on CSPAN. I didn't know who he was. The speech was on terrorism, I think. I was awestruck. He was one of the most knowledgeable, interesting speakers I'd ever heard, and he really made sense. Common sense.

He has not given up, either. He has joined with Buffet to increase non-conservative presence in media (let's not forget that the conservatives are swallowing up huge markets media-wise - remember the Swiftie Vet move-ad that was to play nationwide by one conservative media owner?).

Do not pay attention to the anti-Soros posters who don't have many posts under their belt. I suspect lurkers are around, esp. at this time, the height of the Schiavo mess.

If Soros broke a law, shame on him. Shame on Bush for his breaking of laws throughout the years. Shame on Cheney. Shame on Wolfowitz. Shame on Rove for the things he's done. Shame on Ken Lay. Shame on the Faux News channel for its biased "reporting." Plenty of shame to go around. Maybe they should all do time for their crimes, starting with Bush.

[Griffy]

19. 1000+ lurkers are here too.. I know this..

I just dont know exactly who. Its WHAT they say that reveals what the person thinks.

[TexasSissy]

24. Yes. n/t

[Psephos]

28. Soros made his fortune in currency speculation...

...which is a zero-sum game. In other words, when a dollar (or whatever) went into his pocket, it came out of someone else's.

His reputation is that he's extremely intelligent, loves to manipulate markets, and does not feel pangs of conscience about those on the other side of his trades. Market manipulation is not always illegal, although in Soros' case the French courts have found that some of his activities clearly were.

Beyond the legal aspect, there is a moral aspect as well. Unfortunately, those on the other side of his trades were not all rich speculators. Much of his money came from people who could ill afford it, i.e., companies and governments that were using the currency markets to hedge against risk to their real business, and got burned by the very thing they hoped would insulate them. Furthermore, gyrations in currency markets caused by his sub rosa strategies and use of nonpublic knowledge hurt a lot of people who had nothing at all to do with financial markets. Joe and Jane Sixpack, in other words.

There are a lot of people who help Democrats without resort to tainted money. I'm not going to pile on the "Soros is a total asshole" bandwagon, but I also hope he fades into the sunset soon, and we learn to rely on a better class of person.

These are, of course, my opinions, not statements of irrefutable fact. Make of them what you wish.

Peace.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

25. Amen

You have to wonder when so much energy is expended to attempt to tarnish the reputation of a man who's been such a good friend to the Democrats.

The lurkers just try a little too hard.

TexasSissy is right. Ignore them.

[slor]

5. Well the chimp got away with his...

insider trading.

[DFWdem]

8. I don't think

He would've been so lucky if he'd pulled his Harkan (sp?) Energy crap in France.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

26. Let's not forget Neil Bush

Can you say "Savings And Loan Fiasco"?

[Igel]

9. Soros does what he does for his own reasons.

They may frequently sound like DUers' reasons, but I strongly suspect that his motives and those of DUers are rather different. DUers are frequently self-deceiving: a few points of similarity means you're one of them, lock, stock, and barrel. The differences come to the surface, and all the glorious heroes suddenly become stinking pieces of crap.

France, Britain, and the Asian tigers probably regard him as less than progressive. The number of people he threw out of work in Asia is truly impressive for one lone individual without an army.

[Frederik]

14. Perhaps for his own reasons

Or perhaps not. For what it's worth, in Russia he's rumored to be a spook.

[Griffy]

18. Soros was in Nazi Germany in WW2... he knows fascism...

Ive heard him speak, and as a Jew from a family that escaped the Holocaust I understood. I dont claim to know the man, and im sure hes no angel... but I feel that he knows whats happening and wants to stop him. I do know that the rightwing propagand machine has churned out a huge disinformation campaign against him... like Micheal Schiavo is being lied about now... so careful what you believe!

[hughee99]

20. Leaving aside Soros for a minute, does it bother anyone else...

That in 1988 someone engaged in insider trading and made a profit of €2.2 million. Their "punishment" is to pay a fine equal to the profit they made... THAT'S IT!?? They've been able to profit of the interest of this money for 17 years and now they only have to return the F'ing principle? No additional punishment for breaking the law other than having to give the money back?

[zann725]

22. If you're talking about Shrub, he's been accused TWICE of Insider Trading

...and got off BOTH times.

Though everyone seems to forget.

[hughee99]

23. I completely agree, but

Soros wasn't just accused, he actually got convicted! I hope the fine is at least adjusted for inflation.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

27. That suggests to me.......

........ that the "crime" wasn't much of a crime at all, but more like a civil violation, resulting in a fine.

And he doesn't have to disgorge the profits he made with that 2.2 million euros. And he's paying it back with wildly inflated dollars.

Yeah, they sure put it to George Soros, didn't they?