Category Archives: Legal

Cecilia Nahon: Argentina vs the Vultures

This Institute of New Economic Thinking interview describes how Argentina’s completed sovereign debt restructuring was derailed by vulture fund NML Capital in a reading of the original bonds’ pari passu clause that was contrary to well-established practice. Even the US Treasury had weighed in on the side of Argentina in an amicus brief. The interview of Argentine ambassador Cecilia Nahon by Marshall Auerbach goes into the backstory of the restructuring, that Argentina’s woes in no small measure resulted from following the IMF’s neoliberal fads du jour.

The Administration’s Dishonest Response to Elizabeth Warren’s Attack on Secret Investor Arbitration Panels in Trade Deals

Elizabeth Warren is clearly getting on the Administration’s nerves.

Nurses Unite to Stop TransPacific Partnership Fast Track

In case you haven’t noticed, nurses unions have emerged as a particularly powerful and credible labor/lobbying group. So it’s encouraging to see them use their bully pulpit to rally voters to contact their Congresscritters and voice opposition to the upcoming vote on so-called fast track authority for the TransPacific Partnership. I’m heartened to see, in the Real News Network video below, that the nurses’ representative puts forward compact, factually sound arguments as to why this misnamed “trade deal” is a sop to major corporations at the expense of citizens.

Releasing Private Equity Limited Partnership Agreements from Carlyle and Grosvenor

We are adding two new private equity limited partnership agreements to our document trove, bringing the total to 23.

Troika Not Happy with Initial Draft of Greek Reforms; Eurogroup Reported Still in the Mix (Updated)

As most readers may know, Greece and the Eurogroup ministers agreed to a memorandum last week that would replace the bailout that expires on February 28 with a four-month deal that the memo stresses is in the same framework.

But as much as the memo language was agreed by the ministers, it is not yet a done deal. And it is already looking like we might have a wild ride among the negotiators today.

Where are the “Progressive” Democrats on Loretta Lynch’s HSBC Money Laundering Wrist Slap?

Some Republican Senators are having a field day, and rightly so, over the fact that Obama’s attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch, looks to have allowed bank giant HSBC, and more important, its executives and officers, off vastly too easy in a massive money-laundering and tax evasion scheme. And where are the inquisitive Democratic senators to be found?

The “Vultures” are Still Circling Argentina

Argentina’s infamous “vulture funds”, as the holdout creditors represented by Paul Singer’s NML Capital are affectionately known, are back at their usual antics of trying to claw back from the Argentine government what they (and the US court system) see as rightfully theirs.

Michael Hudson: Ukraine Denouement – The Russian Loan and the IMF’s One-Two Punch

Will America’s insistence that Europe, Russia, and Ukraine act against their economic interest ultimately lead the US to lose Europe?

Robert Parenteau: Get a TAN, Yanis: A Timely Alternative Financing Instrument for Greece

TAN, or tax anticipation notes, would way be a for Greece to give itself more fiscal spending wriggle room without violating Eurozone rules. That will likely be necessary if Monday’s meeting in Brussels results in no extension of the current Eurozone bailout.

GXG: How the Scammers Behind Virgin Gold Mining Corporation Bit Off More Than They Could Chew (VI)

GXG Markets expels dubious broker London Capital (NZ)

Bill Black: Criminal Tax Evader HSBC’s CEO Resorts to Bank Apologist Fable of the Virgin Crisis

Bill Black shreds HSBC’s efforts to use the “I’m the CEO and I know nothing” defense for its helping clients cheat on taxes on a mass scale.

#BlackstoneEvicts

#BlackstoneEvicts is one of the messaging vehicles for a loosely-organized groups of protestors in Spain and the US who oppose private equity kingpin Blackstone’s aggressive evictions and rental abuses.

Wolf Richter: In Search of Cheap Labor in Tech – Behind the H1-B Visa Scenes

his post focuses on how the procedures in the H1-B visa process that are meant to protect workers from unfair competition from foreign workers and contractors are a joke. And this is one of the reasons that the calls by disconnected Beltway pundits and technocrats for American students to get more technically oriented education, most of all in STEM fields, is hopelessly misguided. Companies are more and more refusing to supply much if anything in the way of entry-level jobs, sending yeoman’s work in former white collar professions, including accounting and the law, to outsources in India. And the fix of having more specialized training is just as unrealistic. The more specialized the training, the more at risk you are that those skills will prove to be useless. That is why so many mid-career professionals fall far when they lose their perch, since if they can’t use the narrow expertise that they’ve accumulated, they have to fall back on their generalist skills, which means low-level jobs like call center work, retail, or if they are lucky, a position like an office manager in a small business.

John Helmer: Convicted Fraudster Jonathan Hay, Harvard’s Man Who Wrecked Russia, Resurfaces in Ukraine

One of the sorriest chapters in recent American history was how we allowed an unprecedented opportunity to assist Russia in managing the end of its Communist era to turn into a looting exercise by well-placed insiders, including advisors under contract to Harvard.

onathan Hay ran the day-to-day operations of the Russia Project. He was found guilty of violating three counts of the False Claims Act and was debarred from serving in USAID. But he’s managed to resurface in Ukraine, working in the local operations of a Polish think tank. Nicely played.