FROM: U.S. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
FTC Charges Data Broker with Facilitating the Theft of Millions of Dollars from Consumers' Accounts
Company Sold Personal Financial Information to Scammers
A data broker operation sold the sensitive personal information of hundreds of thousands of consumers – including Social Security and bank account numbers – to scammers who allegedly debited millions from their accounts, the Federal Trade Commission charged in a complaint filed today.
According to the FTC’s complaint, data broker LeapLab bought payday loan applications of financially strapped consumers, and then sold that information to marketers whom it knew had no legitimate need for it. At least one of those marketers, Ideal Financial Solutions – a defendant in another FTC case – allegedly used the information to withdraw millions of dollars from consumers’ accounts without their authorization.
“This case shows that the illegitimate use of sensitive financial information causes real harm to consumers,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Defendants like those in this case harm consumers twice: first by facilitating the theft of their money and second by undermining consumers’ confidence about providing their personal information to legitimate lenders.”
The defendants collected hundreds of thousands of payday loan applications from payday loan websites known as publishers. Publishers typically offer to help consumers obtain payday loans. To do so, they ask for consumers’ sensitive financial information to evaluate their loan applications and transfer funds to their bank accounts if the loan is approved. These applications, including those bought and sold by LeapLab, contained the consumer’s name, address, phone number, employer, Social Security number, and bank account number, including the bank routing number.
The defendants sold approximately five percent of these loan applications to online lenders, who paid them between $10 and $150 per lead. According to the FTC’s complaint, however, the defendants sold the remaining 95 percent for approximately $0.50 each to third parties who were not online lenders and had no legitimate need for this financial information.
The Commission’s complaint alleges that these non-lender third parties included: marketers that made unsolicited sales offers to consumers via email, text message, or telephone call; data brokers that aggregated and then resold consumer information; and phony internet merchants like Ideal Financial Solutions. According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants had reason to believe these marketers had no legitimate need for the sensitive information they were selling.
In the FTC’s case against Ideal Financial Solutions, between 2009 and 2013, Ideal Financial allegedly purchased information on at least 2.2 million consumers from data brokers and used it to make millions of dollars in unauthorized debits and charges for purported financial products that the consumers never purchased. LeapLab provided account information for at least 16 percent these victims.
The complaint notes that LeapLab hired a key executive from Ideal Financial as its own Chief Marketing Officer and then knew that Ideal used the information purchased from it to make unauthorized debits. Yet, the complaint alleges, the defendants continued to sell such information to Ideal.
The defendants in the case, Sitesearch Corp., LeapLab LLC; Leads Company LLC; and John Ayers, are alleged to have violated the FTC Act’s prohibition on unfair practices.
The Commission vote authorizing the staff to file the complaint was 5-0. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, Phoenix Division.
NOTE: The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court.
Friday, December 26, 2014
U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE ANNOUNCES COLLECTION OF $2.3 BILLION IN FISCAL 2014
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
U.S. Attorney's Office Collects More Than $2.3 Billion In Civil And Criminal Actions In Fiscal Year 2014
(PHILADELPHIA) - U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger announced today that the Eastern District of Pennsylvania collected $2,373,688,153 in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014.
The Department of Justice collected $24.7 billion in civil and criminal actions in FY 2014. The more than $24 billion in collections in FY 2014 represents nearly eight and a half times the appropriated $2.91 billion budget for the 94 U.S. Attorney’s offices and the main litigating divisions in that same period.
“Recouping federal funds that were misspent due to fraud, including substantial health care and mortgage insurance funds, is a critical part of our mission,” said Memeger. “Our nation’s taxpayers deserve our most aggressive efforts to recover their hard-earned tax dollars that have been misappropriated. During fiscal year 2014, we continued to honor this mission with these tremendous resolutions and collections.”
The recoveries in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania include more than $1.6 billion in civil and criminal penalties paid by healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to resolve misbranding and unapproved use allegations. J&J paid a $1.273 billion civil settlement to resolve allegations of off-label marketing for Risperdal and Invega, as well as the alleged payment of kickbacks to physicians involving Risperdal. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Janssen), a subsidiary of J&J, paid $400 million in a criminal fine and forfeiture for promoting Risperdal to health care providers for unapproved uses.
The collections also include: a $56.5 million civil settlement with Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC to resolve False Claims Act allegations; a $150 million civil settlement with Amedisys Inc. and its affiliates to resolve False Claims Act allegations; a $7.3 million civil settlement with pharmaceutical company Astellas Pharma US, Inc., to resolve False Claims Act allegations; and a $172.9 million civil settlement with specialty pharmaceuticals company Endo Health Solutions, Inc. and its subsidiary Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Endo), to resolve allegations of off-label marketing.
Additionally, the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, working with partner agencies and divisions, collected approximately $15 billion in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2014, which includes a $13 billion settlement with JP Morgan - the largest settlement with a single entity in American history - to resolve federal and state civil claims arising out of the packaging, marketing, sale and issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS).
The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with the department’s litigating divisions, are responsible for enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. and criminal debts owed to federal crime victims. The law requires defendants to pay restitution to victims of certain federal crimes who have suffered a physical injury or financial loss. While restitution is paid to the victim, criminal fines and felony assessments are paid to the department’s Crime Victims’ Fund, which distributes the funds to state victim compensation and victim assistance programs.
The largest civil collections were from affirmative civil enforcement cases, in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud and other misconduct and collected fines imposed on individuals and corporations for violations of federal health, safety, civil rights, and environmental laws. In addition, civil debts were collected on behalf of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Internal Revenue Service, Small Business Administration, and Department of Education.
Forfeited assets deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
U.S. Attorney's Office Collects More Than $2.3 Billion In Civil And Criminal Actions In Fiscal Year 2014
(PHILADELPHIA) - U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger announced today that the Eastern District of Pennsylvania collected $2,373,688,153 in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014.
The Department of Justice collected $24.7 billion in civil and criminal actions in FY 2014. The more than $24 billion in collections in FY 2014 represents nearly eight and a half times the appropriated $2.91 billion budget for the 94 U.S. Attorney’s offices and the main litigating divisions in that same period.
“Recouping federal funds that were misspent due to fraud, including substantial health care and mortgage insurance funds, is a critical part of our mission,” said Memeger. “Our nation’s taxpayers deserve our most aggressive efforts to recover their hard-earned tax dollars that have been misappropriated. During fiscal year 2014, we continued to honor this mission with these tremendous resolutions and collections.”
The recoveries in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania include more than $1.6 billion in civil and criminal penalties paid by healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to resolve misbranding and unapproved use allegations. J&J paid a $1.273 billion civil settlement to resolve allegations of off-label marketing for Risperdal and Invega, as well as the alleged payment of kickbacks to physicians involving Risperdal. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Janssen), a subsidiary of J&J, paid $400 million in a criminal fine and forfeiture for promoting Risperdal to health care providers for unapproved uses.
The collections also include: a $56.5 million civil settlement with Shire Pharmaceuticals LLC to resolve False Claims Act allegations; a $150 million civil settlement with Amedisys Inc. and its affiliates to resolve False Claims Act allegations; a $7.3 million civil settlement with pharmaceutical company Astellas Pharma US, Inc., to resolve False Claims Act allegations; and a $172.9 million civil settlement with specialty pharmaceuticals company Endo Health Solutions, Inc. and its subsidiary Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Endo), to resolve allegations of off-label marketing.
Additionally, the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, working with partner agencies and divisions, collected approximately $15 billion in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2014, which includes a $13 billion settlement with JP Morgan - the largest settlement with a single entity in American history - to resolve federal and state civil claims arising out of the packaging, marketing, sale and issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS).
The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with the department’s litigating divisions, are responsible for enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. and criminal debts owed to federal crime victims. The law requires defendants to pay restitution to victims of certain federal crimes who have suffered a physical injury or financial loss. While restitution is paid to the victim, criminal fines and felony assessments are paid to the department’s Crime Victims’ Fund, which distributes the funds to state victim compensation and victim assistance programs.
The largest civil collections were from affirmative civil enforcement cases, in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud and other misconduct and collected fines imposed on individuals and corporations for violations of federal health, safety, civil rights, and environmental laws. In addition, civil debts were collected on behalf of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Internal Revenue Service, Small Business Administration, and Department of Education.
Forfeited assets deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.
SEC ISSUES ANNUAL STAFF REPORT REGARDING NRSROs
FROM: U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
12/23/2014 05:15 PM EST
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued its annual staff report on the findings of examinations of credit rating agencies registered as nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSROs) and submitted a separate report on NRSROs to Congress.
“These reports provide the most current and comprehensive picture of the credit rating industry,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “The SEC’s enhanced oversight of NRSROs, informed by risk assessment, regular examinations and policy considerations, provides increasingly robust and effective oversight of the industry, as reflected by overall improvements in compliance, documentation, and board oversight.”
The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act requires the SEC to examine each NRSRO once a year and issue an annual report summarizing the examination findings. In addition to covering eight areas required by the Dodd-Frank Act, SEC examiners used risk assessment tools to identify specific areas of focus such as information technology, cybersecurity, or certain ratings activities. During the 2014 examinations, the staff observed improvements concerning:
Compliance resources, monitoring, and culture
Documentation and resources for criteria and model validation
Document retention
Board of directors or governing committee oversight
The staff made recommendations for improvement in certain areas, including:
Use of affiliates or third-party contractors in the credit rating process
Management of conflicts of interest related to the rating business operations
Adherence to policies and procedures for determining or reviewing credit ratings
“The findings and recommendations in the 2014 examination report demonstrate the impact of rigorous oversight by the SEC and regular examinations by the Office of Credit Ratings,” said Thomas J. Butler, Director of the SEC’s Office of Credit Ratings.
The annual report to Congress, which is required by the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006, details the state of competition, transparency, and conflicts of interest at NRSROs. The staff report includes a discussion of the new requirements for NRSROs adopted by the Commission in August 2014 to improve the quality of credit ratings and increase credit rating agency accountability through enhanced transparency, governance, and protections against conflicts of interest.
The following SEC staff made significant contributions to the examinations and reports: Diane Audino, Rita Bolger, Patrick Boyle, Matthew Chan, Kristin Costello, Scott Davey, Shawn Davis, Franco Destro, Michael Gerity, Kenneth Godwin, Natalia Kaden, Julia Kiel, Russell Long, Abe Losice, Carlos Maymi, Matt Middleton, David Nicolardi, Sam Nikoomanesh, Harriet Orol, Abraham Putney, Jeremiah Roberts, Mary Ryan, Warren Tong, Evelyn Tuntono, Chris Valtin, Kevin Vasel, and Michele Wilham. The Office of Credit Ratings appreciates the assistance provided during the examinations by Todd Scharf and Ted Shelkey of the SEC’s Office of Information Technology.
12/23/2014 05:15 PM EST
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued its annual staff report on the findings of examinations of credit rating agencies registered as nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSROs) and submitted a separate report on NRSROs to Congress.
“These reports provide the most current and comprehensive picture of the credit rating industry,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “The SEC’s enhanced oversight of NRSROs, informed by risk assessment, regular examinations and policy considerations, provides increasingly robust and effective oversight of the industry, as reflected by overall improvements in compliance, documentation, and board oversight.”
The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act requires the SEC to examine each NRSRO once a year and issue an annual report summarizing the examination findings. In addition to covering eight areas required by the Dodd-Frank Act, SEC examiners used risk assessment tools to identify specific areas of focus such as information technology, cybersecurity, or certain ratings activities. During the 2014 examinations, the staff observed improvements concerning:
Compliance resources, monitoring, and culture
Documentation and resources for criteria and model validation
Document retention
Board of directors or governing committee oversight
The staff made recommendations for improvement in certain areas, including:
Use of affiliates or third-party contractors in the credit rating process
Management of conflicts of interest related to the rating business operations
Adherence to policies and procedures for determining or reviewing credit ratings
“The findings and recommendations in the 2014 examination report demonstrate the impact of rigorous oversight by the SEC and regular examinations by the Office of Credit Ratings,” said Thomas J. Butler, Director of the SEC’s Office of Credit Ratings.
The annual report to Congress, which is required by the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006, details the state of competition, transparency, and conflicts of interest at NRSROs. The staff report includes a discussion of the new requirements for NRSROs adopted by the Commission in August 2014 to improve the quality of credit ratings and increase credit rating agency accountability through enhanced transparency, governance, and protections against conflicts of interest.
The following SEC staff made significant contributions to the examinations and reports: Diane Audino, Rita Bolger, Patrick Boyle, Matthew Chan, Kristin Costello, Scott Davey, Shawn Davis, Franco Destro, Michael Gerity, Kenneth Godwin, Natalia Kaden, Julia Kiel, Russell Long, Abe Losice, Carlos Maymi, Matt Middleton, David Nicolardi, Sam Nikoomanesh, Harriet Orol, Abraham Putney, Jeremiah Roberts, Mary Ryan, Warren Tong, Evelyn Tuntono, Chris Valtin, Kevin Vasel, and Michele Wilham. The Office of Credit Ratings appreciates the assistance provided during the examinations by Todd Scharf and Ted Shelkey of the SEC’s Office of Information Technology.
NSF MATHENATICS PRIZE WINNER WORKS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Unlocking the mysteries of mathematics
Breakthrough Prize winner has advanced the field
Évariste Galois was a 19th Century French mathematician who died at 20 after a duel over a woman. Even by then, however, his work had established him as an important force in mathematics, especially his proof that polynomial equations of any degree greater than four were impossible to solve using radicals. It is a concept whose various ramifications have engrossed serious mathematicians ever since, including Richard Taylor.
Taylor, a professor in the school of mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientist, has spent much of his career focusing on the relationship between Galois Groups and their representations, which measure the algebraic symmetries of equations and their relationship to geometric symmetries, a template first developed by Taylor's institute colleague Robert P. Langlands.
Translating the associations between the two ultimately can result in new ways to solve problems in both areas. "You can write a ‘dictionary' with entries connecting both subjects," Taylor says. "You can take a problem on one side and turn it into a problem on the other side--you can make hard problems simpler by turning them from algebra into geometry, or geometry into algebra."
For example, a problem known as Fermat's Last Theorem, after a 17th Century French judge and mathematician, had stymied mathematicians for more than three centuries until Andrew Wiles, a teacher of Taylor's, proved the theorem by establishing a special case of Langlands' dictionary, turning this algebraic problem into a much easier geometric problem.
It took more than one try, and Taylor helped after Wiles made an error during his first attempt. "After trying alone to fix it for a bit, he asked me to help him, and we finally found a way around the mistake," Taylor says.
Langlands' design has transformed the process of solving these once impossible mathematical problems, albeit sometimes inexplicably.
"What I find so attractive about this is that there is so much mystery here," Taylor says. "Why should we have this tool? Even when we prove it exists, it still seems mysterious, which is rare in mathematics. The proofs are long and complicated without a simple reason why it is true. It is also very beautiful, but hard to convey."
Some applications of Langlands' program have proved useful in developing error correcting codes, which allow the correction of mistakes introduced into data during storage, such as on a DVD, or during transmission via radio or cables.
"When you have a phone conversation or send a photo to someone else's phone, little errors may creep in as that message is transmitted, the result of interference," Taylor says. "If you didn't do anything, it would look or sound funny. So what they do is transmit extra information as a check, so even if errors creep in, you can correct them. There are mathematical ways to do this, some of which have been influenced by the Langlands program."
Taylor's research has been dedicated to proving instances of Langlands dictionary. Its applications include his work on, among other things, the Sato-Tate conjecture, an algebra problem that goes back about 50 years, and is a statement about the statistical distribution of certain sequences of numbers.
"Nobody had made any progress on it, but we proved it as a consequence of Langlands' dictionary," Taylor says. "Using the dictionary, we could turn it into a much easier problem about symmetry."
Taylor has received five NSF grants supporting his research between 1997 and 2012, totaling more than $2.2 million. He also recently won the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, launched by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, which recognized Taylor for his major advances in the field, and for contributing to communicating the importance and excitement of mathematics to the general public.
Taylor also has worked on the Taniyama-Shimura-Weil conjecture, which states that elliptic curves over the field of rational numbers are related to modular forms. Wiles initially proved the modularity theorem for semi-stable elliptic curves, which was related to Fermat's Last Theorem; later Taylor and others extended Wiles' techniques in 2001 to prove the full modularity theorem, a special case of more general conjectures resulting from Langlands' work.
"The Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture is a special case of the Langlands program," Taylor says. "Wiles proved some cases of the Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture, and from this one could deduce Fermat's Last Theorem. Later, a group of us extended this to prove the full Shimura-Taniyama Conjecture."
Taylor also is known for his proof--with Michael Harris, an American mathematician now jointly based at the Institute of Mathematics of Jussieu in Paris and Columbia University--of the Local Langlands Conjecture, part of the Langlands program, "where one focuses on one prime number at a time, surely much easier than the full program, but an essential stepping stone on the way to the full Langlands Conjectures," Taylor says.
He and his collaborators also proved the Hasse-Weil Conjecture, another part of the Langlands program, although it actually predates Langlands, he says.
"I do mathematics because of its beauty, with no thought to applications," Taylor says. However, it is quite amazing how often such curiosity-driven research has later been crucial to the development of the technology that is transforming our world."
-- Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation
Investigators
Richard Taylor
Related Institutions/Organizations
Harvard University
Institute For Advanced Study
Unlocking the mysteries of mathematics
Breakthrough Prize winner has advanced the field
Évariste Galois was a 19th Century French mathematician who died at 20 after a duel over a woman. Even by then, however, his work had established him as an important force in mathematics, especially his proof that polynomial equations of any degree greater than four were impossible to solve using radicals. It is a concept whose various ramifications have engrossed serious mathematicians ever since, including Richard Taylor.
Taylor, a professor in the school of mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientist, has spent much of his career focusing on the relationship between Galois Groups and their representations, which measure the algebraic symmetries of equations and their relationship to geometric symmetries, a template first developed by Taylor's institute colleague Robert P. Langlands.
Translating the associations between the two ultimately can result in new ways to solve problems in both areas. "You can write a ‘dictionary' with entries connecting both subjects," Taylor says. "You can take a problem on one side and turn it into a problem on the other side--you can make hard problems simpler by turning them from algebra into geometry, or geometry into algebra."
For example, a problem known as Fermat's Last Theorem, after a 17th Century French judge and mathematician, had stymied mathematicians for more than three centuries until Andrew Wiles, a teacher of Taylor's, proved the theorem by establishing a special case of Langlands' dictionary, turning this algebraic problem into a much easier geometric problem.
It took more than one try, and Taylor helped after Wiles made an error during his first attempt. "After trying alone to fix it for a bit, he asked me to help him, and we finally found a way around the mistake," Taylor says.
Langlands' design has transformed the process of solving these once impossible mathematical problems, albeit sometimes inexplicably.
"What I find so attractive about this is that there is so much mystery here," Taylor says. "Why should we have this tool? Even when we prove it exists, it still seems mysterious, which is rare in mathematics. The proofs are long and complicated without a simple reason why it is true. It is also very beautiful, but hard to convey."
Some applications of Langlands' program have proved useful in developing error correcting codes, which allow the correction of mistakes introduced into data during storage, such as on a DVD, or during transmission via radio or cables.
"When you have a phone conversation or send a photo to someone else's phone, little errors may creep in as that message is transmitted, the result of interference," Taylor says. "If you didn't do anything, it would look or sound funny. So what they do is transmit extra information as a check, so even if errors creep in, you can correct them. There are mathematical ways to do this, some of which have been influenced by the Langlands program."
Taylor's research has been dedicated to proving instances of Langlands dictionary. Its applications include his work on, among other things, the Sato-Tate conjecture, an algebra problem that goes back about 50 years, and is a statement about the statistical distribution of certain sequences of numbers.
"Nobody had made any progress on it, but we proved it as a consequence of Langlands' dictionary," Taylor says. "Using the dictionary, we could turn it into a much easier problem about symmetry."
Taylor has received five NSF grants supporting his research between 1997 and 2012, totaling more than $2.2 million. He also recently won the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, launched by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, which recognized Taylor for his major advances in the field, and for contributing to communicating the importance and excitement of mathematics to the general public.
Taylor also has worked on the Taniyama-Shimura-Weil conjecture, which states that elliptic curves over the field of rational numbers are related to modular forms. Wiles initially proved the modularity theorem for semi-stable elliptic curves, which was related to Fermat's Last Theorem; later Taylor and others extended Wiles' techniques in 2001 to prove the full modularity theorem, a special case of more general conjectures resulting from Langlands' work.
"The Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture is a special case of the Langlands program," Taylor says. "Wiles proved some cases of the Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture, and from this one could deduce Fermat's Last Theorem. Later, a group of us extended this to prove the full Shimura-Taniyama Conjecture."
Taylor also is known for his proof--with Michael Harris, an American mathematician now jointly based at the Institute of Mathematics of Jussieu in Paris and Columbia University--of the Local Langlands Conjecture, part of the Langlands program, "where one focuses on one prime number at a time, surely much easier than the full program, but an essential stepping stone on the way to the full Langlands Conjectures," Taylor says.
He and his collaborators also proved the Hasse-Weil Conjecture, another part of the Langlands program, although it actually predates Langlands, he says.
"I do mathematics because of its beauty, with no thought to applications," Taylor says. However, it is quite amazing how often such curiosity-driven research has later been crucial to the development of the technology that is transforming our world."
-- Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation
Investigators
Richard Taylor
Related Institutions/Organizations
Harvard University
Institute For Advanced Study
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
5TH ANNIVERSARY OF NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATE LIU XIAOBO'S CONVICTION IN CHINA FOR INCITING SUBVERSION
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Fifth Anniversary of Liu Xiaobo's Conviction
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
December 24, 2014
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and writer Liu Xiaobo today spends the fifth anniversary of his conviction for “inciting subversion” in prison, serving out an 11-year sentence.
The United States remains deeply concerned that China continues to incarcerate Liu Xiaobo and hold his wife, Liu Xia, in extralegal house arrest.
Liu Xiaobo is a courageous and eloquent spokesperson recognized throughout the world for his long and non-violent advocacy for human rights and democracy in China.
We reiterate our call on China to release Liu Xiaobo and to remove all restrictions on Liu Xia.
We also urge China to release all individuals detained for peacefully expressing their views, including Ilham Tohti and his students, and Pu Zhiqiang, Gao Zhisheng, Yang Maodong, Gao Yu, and Xu Zhiyong.
In addition, we request that Chinese leaders guarantee them the protections and freedoms to which they are entitled under China's international human rights commitments.
I raise human rights concerns in each and every one of my conversations with President Xi and other Chinese leaders, because it is too important to stand in the way of China's emergence in the community of nations.
Fifth Anniversary of Liu Xiaobo's Conviction
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
December 24, 2014
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and writer Liu Xiaobo today spends the fifth anniversary of his conviction for “inciting subversion” in prison, serving out an 11-year sentence.
The United States remains deeply concerned that China continues to incarcerate Liu Xiaobo and hold his wife, Liu Xia, in extralegal house arrest.
Liu Xiaobo is a courageous and eloquent spokesperson recognized throughout the world for his long and non-violent advocacy for human rights and democracy in China.
We reiterate our call on China to release Liu Xiaobo and to remove all restrictions on Liu Xia.
We also urge China to release all individuals detained for peacefully expressing their views, including Ilham Tohti and his students, and Pu Zhiqiang, Gao Zhisheng, Yang Maodong, Gao Yu, and Xu Zhiyong.
In addition, we request that Chinese leaders guarantee them the protections and freedoms to which they are entitled under China's international human rights commitments.
I raise human rights concerns in each and every one of my conversations with President Xi and other Chinese leaders, because it is too important to stand in the way of China's emergence in the community of nations.
FTC WARNS CHINA-BASED MOBILE APP DEVELOPER ABOUT COLLECTING CHILDREN'S PERSONAL INFORMATION
FROM: U.S. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
FTC Warns Children’s App Maker BabyBus About Potential COPPA Violations
Letter Notes Company’s Apps Appear to Collect Children’s Location Info
The staff of the Federal Trade Commission sent a letter to a China-based developer of mobile applications directed to children, warning that the company may be in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule.
In the letter, the FTC notes that it appears the child-directed applications marketed by the company, BabyBus, appear to collect precise geolocation information about users. The letter notes that the company does not get parents’ consent before collecting children’s personal information, which would appear to violate the COPPA Rule.
The letter notes that the applications, available on the Apple App Store, Amazon App Store and Google Play, have been downloaded millions of times. The apps are clearly directed to children from ages one to six, including apps that teach letters, numbers and shapes. The letter was also sent to the three application marketplaces.
The COPPA Rule requires companies collecting personal information from children under 13 to post clear privacy policies and to notify parents and get their consent before collecting or sharing any information from a child. The rule was revised in 2013 to adapt to the growth of mobile technology aimed at children.
The letter asks the company to evaluate its apps and determine whether they may be in violation, as well as informing the company that the Commission will review the apps again in the next month to ensure they are in compliance with the rule.
The Commission vote to authorize public release of the letter was 5-0.
FTC Warns Children’s App Maker BabyBus About Potential COPPA Violations
Letter Notes Company’s Apps Appear to Collect Children’s Location Info
The staff of the Federal Trade Commission sent a letter to a China-based developer of mobile applications directed to children, warning that the company may be in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule.
In the letter, the FTC notes that it appears the child-directed applications marketed by the company, BabyBus, appear to collect precise geolocation information about users. The letter notes that the company does not get parents’ consent before collecting children’s personal information, which would appear to violate the COPPA Rule.
The letter notes that the applications, available on the Apple App Store, Amazon App Store and Google Play, have been downloaded millions of times. The apps are clearly directed to children from ages one to six, including apps that teach letters, numbers and shapes. The letter was also sent to the three application marketplaces.
The COPPA Rule requires companies collecting personal information from children under 13 to post clear privacy policies and to notify parents and get their consent before collecting or sharing any information from a child. The rule was revised in 2013 to adapt to the growth of mobile technology aimed at children.
The letter asks the company to evaluate its apps and determine whether they may be in violation, as well as informing the company that the Commission will review the apps again in the next month to ensure they are in compliance with the rule.
The Commission vote to authorize public release of the letter was 5-0.
U.S. UN REP. POWER MAKES REMARKS ON NORTH KOREA
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
December 22, 2014
AS DELIVERED
Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you Assistant Secretary-General Simonovic and Assistant Secretary-General Zerihoun, for your informative and appropriately bleak briefings; and for the ongoing attention that your respective teams give to the situation in the DPRK, in spite of persistent obstacles put up by the North Korean government.
Today’s meeting reflects the growing consensus among Council members and UN Member States that the widespread and systematic human rights violations being committed by the North Korean government are not only deplorable in their own right, but also pose a threat to international peace and security.
A major impetus for the Security Council taking up this issue was the comprehensive report issued in February 2014 by the UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry. The Commission of Inquiry conducted more than 200 confidential interviews with victims, eyewitnesses, and former officials, and held public hearings in which more than 80 witnesses gave testimony. Witness accounts were corroborated by other forms of evidence, such as satellite imagery confirming the locations of prison camps.
North Korea denied the Commission access to the country, consistent with its policy of routinely denying access to independent human rights and humanitarian groups, including the Red Cross and UN special rapporteurs. And despite repeated requests, the DPRK refused to cooperate with the inquiry.
The main finding of the Commission’s thorough and objective report is that “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” The Commission found that the evidence it gathered provided reasonable grounds to determine that, “crimes against humanity have been committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the State.”
If you have not watched any of the hours of victims’ testimony, or read from the hundreds of pages of transcripts from the Commission’s public hearings, I urge you to do so. They show North Korea for what it is: a living nightmare.
A former prisoner of Prison Camp 15, Kim Young-soon, said she and other prisoners were so famished they picked kernels of corn from the dung of cattle to eat. She said, “If there was a day that we were able to have mouse, that was a special diet for us. We had to eat everything alive, every type of meat we could find. Everything that flew, that crawled on the ground, any grass that grew in the field.”
Ahn Myong Chul, a former guard at Prison Camp 22, spoke of guards routinely raping prisoners. In one case in which a victim became pregnant and gave birth, the former guard reported that prison officials cooked her baby and fed it to their dogs. This sounds unbelievable and unthinkable; yet this is what a former guard told the Commission of Inquiry at a public hearing. His account fits a pattern across witnesses’ testimonies of sadistic punishments meted out to prisoners whose “crime” was being raped by officials.
The Commission estimates that between 80 and 120 thousand people are being held in prison camps like the ones where so many of these crimes occurred.
Many who testified before the Commission were tortured as punishment for trying to flee North Korea. One man who was sent back to the DPRK from China described being held in prison cells that were only around 50 centimeters high, just over a foot and a half. He said the guards told him that because the prisoners were animals, they would have to crawl like animals. A woman from the city of Musan told how her brother was caught after fleeing to China. When he was returned, North Korean security officials bound his hands and chained him to the back of a truck before dragging him roughly 45 kilometers, driving three loops around the city so everyone could see, his sister testified. “When he fell down, they kept on driving,” she said.
Nor are the horrors limited to prison camps or those who try to flee. The Commission found “an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association” in the DPRK.
On December 18th, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution expressing grave concern at the Commission’s findings, and roundly condemning the DPRK’s “widespread and gross violations of human rights.” One hundred and sixteen member States voted in favor, 20 against, and 53 abstained. The resolution also encouraged the Security Council to “take appropriate action to ensure accountability, including through consideration of referral of the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the International Criminal Court and consideration of the scope for effective targeted sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible.”
The Security Council should demand the DPRK change its atrocious practices, which demonstrate a fundamental disregard for human rights and constitute a threat to international peace and security.
We should take this on for three reasons. First, the DPRK’s response to the Commission of Inquiry’s report – and even to the prospect of today’s session – shows that it is sensitive to criticism of its human rights record. Just look at all the different strategies North Korea has tried in the past several months to distract attention from the report, to delegitimize its findings, and to avoid scrutiny of its human rights record.
The DPRK ramped up its propaganda machine, publishing its own sham report on its human rights record, and claiming “the world’s most advantageous human rights system.” The DPRK tried to smear the reputations of hundreds of people who were brave enough to speak out about the heinous abuses they suffered, calling them “human scum bereft of even an iota of conscience.” This was in a statement North Korea sent to the Security Council today. And North Korea launched slurs against the Commission’s distinguished chairman, Justice Kirby.
The DPRK deployed threats, saying any effort to hold it more accountable for its atrocities would be met with “catastrophic consequences.”
All of North Korea’s responses – the threats, the smears, the cynical diversions – show that the government feels the need to defend its abysmal human rights record. And that is precisely why our attention is so important.
The second argument for exerting additional pressure is that when regimes warn of deadly reprisals against countries that condemn their atrocities, as the North Koreans have done, that is precisely the moment when we need stand up and not back down. Dictators who see threats are an effective tool for silencing the international community tend to be emboldened and not placated. And that holds true not only for the North Korean regime, but for human rights violators around the world who are watching how the Security Council responds to the DPRK’s threats.
The DPRK is already shockingly cavalier about dishing out threats of staging nuclear attacks, and has routinely flouted the prohibitions on proliferation imposed by the Security Council. In July, North Korea’s military threatened to launch nuclear weapons at the White House and the Pentagon, and in March 2013, it threatened to launch a pre-emptive strike on the United States, saying, “everything will be reduced to ashes and flames.”
In the most recent example of its recklessness, the DPRK carried out a significant cyber-attack on the United States in response to a Hollywood comedy portraying a farcical assassination plot. The attack destroyed systems and stole massive quantities of personal and commercial data from Sony Pictures Entertainment – not only damaging a private sector entity, but also affecting countless Americans who work for the company. The attackers also threatened Sony’s employees, actors in the film, movie theaters, and even people who dared to go to the theaters showing the movie, warning them to “Remember the 11th of September.” Not content with denying freedom of expression to its own people, the North Korean regime now seems intent on suppressing the exercise of this fundamental freedom in our nation.
North Korea also threatened the United States with “serious consequences” if our country did not conduct a joint investigation with the DPRK – into an attack that they carried out. This is absurd. Yet it is exactly the kind of behavior we have come to expect from a regime that threatened to take “merciless countermeasures” against the U.S. over a Hollywood comedy, and has no qualms about holding tens of thousands of people in harrowing gulags. We cannot give in to threats or intimidation of any kind.
Third, the international community does not need to choose between focusing on North Korea’s proliferation of nuclear weapons and focusing on its widespread and ongoing abuses against its own people. That is a false choice. We must do both. As we have seen throughout history, the way countries treat their own citizens – particularly those countries that systematically commit atrocities against their own people – tends to align closely with the way they treat other countries and the norms of our shared international system.
On November 23, a week after the UN’s Third Committee adopted its DPRK resolution, North Korea’s military said “all those involved in its adoption deserve a severe punishment” and warned, again, of “catastrophic consequences.” Now here, presumably, “all” would imply the more than 100 Member States who voted for the resolution. The military also that said if Japan “continued behaving as now, it will disappear from the world map.”
When a country threatens nuclear annihilation because it receives criticism of how it treats its own people, can there be any doubt regarding the connection between North Korea’s human rights record and international peace and security?
North Korea did not want us to meet today, and vociferously opposed the country’s human rights situation being added to the Security Council’s agenda. If the DPRK wants to be taken off the Security Council’s agenda, it can start by following the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations to: acknowledge the systematic violations it continues to commit; immediately dismantle political prison camps and release all political prisoners; allow free and unfettered access by independent human rights observers; and hold accountable those most responsible for its systematic violations.
Knowing the utter improbability of North Korea making those and a long list of other necessary changes, it is incumbent on the Security Council to consider the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendation that the situation in North Korea be referred to the International Criminal Court and to consider other appropriate action on accountability – as 116 Member States have urged the Council to do.
In the meantime, the United States will support the efforts of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a field-based office to continue documenting the DPRK’s human rights violations, as mandated by the Human Rights Council, as well as support the work of the Special Rapporteur. Both should brief the Council on new developments in future sessions on this issue.
It is also crucial that all of DPRK’s neighbors abide by the principle of non-refoulement, given the horrific abuses to which North Koreans are subjected to upon return, and provide unfettered access to the UNHCR in their countries. The United States will continue to welcome North Korean refugees to our country, and help provide assistance to North Korean asylum seekers in other countries.
It is reasonable to debate the most effective strategy to end the nightmare of North Korea’s human rights crisis. What is unconscionable in the face of these widespread abuses – and dangerous, given the threat that the situation in the DPRK poses to international peace and security – is to stay silent. Silence will not make the North Korean government end its abuses. Silence will not make the international community safer.
Today, we have broken the Council’s silence. We have begun to shine a light, and what it has revealed is terrifying. We must continue to shine that light, for as long as these abuses persist. Today’s session is another important step – but far from the last – towards accountability for the crimes being perpetrated against the people of North Korea. The Council must come back to speak regularly about the DPRK’s human rights situation – and what we can do to change it – for as long as the crimes that brought us here today persist. That is the absolute minimum we can and must do.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
December 22, 2014
AS DELIVERED
Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you Assistant Secretary-General Simonovic and Assistant Secretary-General Zerihoun, for your informative and appropriately bleak briefings; and for the ongoing attention that your respective teams give to the situation in the DPRK, in spite of persistent obstacles put up by the North Korean government.
Today’s meeting reflects the growing consensus among Council members and UN Member States that the widespread and systematic human rights violations being committed by the North Korean government are not only deplorable in their own right, but also pose a threat to international peace and security.
A major impetus for the Security Council taking up this issue was the comprehensive report issued in February 2014 by the UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry. The Commission of Inquiry conducted more than 200 confidential interviews with victims, eyewitnesses, and former officials, and held public hearings in which more than 80 witnesses gave testimony. Witness accounts were corroborated by other forms of evidence, such as satellite imagery confirming the locations of prison camps.
North Korea denied the Commission access to the country, consistent with its policy of routinely denying access to independent human rights and humanitarian groups, including the Red Cross and UN special rapporteurs. And despite repeated requests, the DPRK refused to cooperate with the inquiry.
The main finding of the Commission’s thorough and objective report is that “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” The Commission found that the evidence it gathered provided reasonable grounds to determine that, “crimes against humanity have been committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the State.”
If you have not watched any of the hours of victims’ testimony, or read from the hundreds of pages of transcripts from the Commission’s public hearings, I urge you to do so. They show North Korea for what it is: a living nightmare.
A former prisoner of Prison Camp 15, Kim Young-soon, said she and other prisoners were so famished they picked kernels of corn from the dung of cattle to eat. She said, “If there was a day that we were able to have mouse, that was a special diet for us. We had to eat everything alive, every type of meat we could find. Everything that flew, that crawled on the ground, any grass that grew in the field.”
Ahn Myong Chul, a former guard at Prison Camp 22, spoke of guards routinely raping prisoners. In one case in which a victim became pregnant and gave birth, the former guard reported that prison officials cooked her baby and fed it to their dogs. This sounds unbelievable and unthinkable; yet this is what a former guard told the Commission of Inquiry at a public hearing. His account fits a pattern across witnesses’ testimonies of sadistic punishments meted out to prisoners whose “crime” was being raped by officials.
The Commission estimates that between 80 and 120 thousand people are being held in prison camps like the ones where so many of these crimes occurred.
Many who testified before the Commission were tortured as punishment for trying to flee North Korea. One man who was sent back to the DPRK from China described being held in prison cells that were only around 50 centimeters high, just over a foot and a half. He said the guards told him that because the prisoners were animals, they would have to crawl like animals. A woman from the city of Musan told how her brother was caught after fleeing to China. When he was returned, North Korean security officials bound his hands and chained him to the back of a truck before dragging him roughly 45 kilometers, driving three loops around the city so everyone could see, his sister testified. “When he fell down, they kept on driving,” she said.
Nor are the horrors limited to prison camps or those who try to flee. The Commission found “an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association” in the DPRK.
On December 18th, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution expressing grave concern at the Commission’s findings, and roundly condemning the DPRK’s “widespread and gross violations of human rights.” One hundred and sixteen member States voted in favor, 20 against, and 53 abstained. The resolution also encouraged the Security Council to “take appropriate action to ensure accountability, including through consideration of referral of the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the International Criminal Court and consideration of the scope for effective targeted sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible.”
The Security Council should demand the DPRK change its atrocious practices, which demonstrate a fundamental disregard for human rights and constitute a threat to international peace and security.
We should take this on for three reasons. First, the DPRK’s response to the Commission of Inquiry’s report – and even to the prospect of today’s session – shows that it is sensitive to criticism of its human rights record. Just look at all the different strategies North Korea has tried in the past several months to distract attention from the report, to delegitimize its findings, and to avoid scrutiny of its human rights record.
The DPRK ramped up its propaganda machine, publishing its own sham report on its human rights record, and claiming “the world’s most advantageous human rights system.” The DPRK tried to smear the reputations of hundreds of people who were brave enough to speak out about the heinous abuses they suffered, calling them “human scum bereft of even an iota of conscience.” This was in a statement North Korea sent to the Security Council today. And North Korea launched slurs against the Commission’s distinguished chairman, Justice Kirby.
The DPRK deployed threats, saying any effort to hold it more accountable for its atrocities would be met with “catastrophic consequences.”
All of North Korea’s responses – the threats, the smears, the cynical diversions – show that the government feels the need to defend its abysmal human rights record. And that is precisely why our attention is so important.
The second argument for exerting additional pressure is that when regimes warn of deadly reprisals against countries that condemn their atrocities, as the North Koreans have done, that is precisely the moment when we need stand up and not back down. Dictators who see threats are an effective tool for silencing the international community tend to be emboldened and not placated. And that holds true not only for the North Korean regime, but for human rights violators around the world who are watching how the Security Council responds to the DPRK’s threats.
The DPRK is already shockingly cavalier about dishing out threats of staging nuclear attacks, and has routinely flouted the prohibitions on proliferation imposed by the Security Council. In July, North Korea’s military threatened to launch nuclear weapons at the White House and the Pentagon, and in March 2013, it threatened to launch a pre-emptive strike on the United States, saying, “everything will be reduced to ashes and flames.”
In the most recent example of its recklessness, the DPRK carried out a significant cyber-attack on the United States in response to a Hollywood comedy portraying a farcical assassination plot. The attack destroyed systems and stole massive quantities of personal and commercial data from Sony Pictures Entertainment – not only damaging a private sector entity, but also affecting countless Americans who work for the company. The attackers also threatened Sony’s employees, actors in the film, movie theaters, and even people who dared to go to the theaters showing the movie, warning them to “Remember the 11th of September.” Not content with denying freedom of expression to its own people, the North Korean regime now seems intent on suppressing the exercise of this fundamental freedom in our nation.
North Korea also threatened the United States with “serious consequences” if our country did not conduct a joint investigation with the DPRK – into an attack that they carried out. This is absurd. Yet it is exactly the kind of behavior we have come to expect from a regime that threatened to take “merciless countermeasures” against the U.S. over a Hollywood comedy, and has no qualms about holding tens of thousands of people in harrowing gulags. We cannot give in to threats or intimidation of any kind.
Third, the international community does not need to choose between focusing on North Korea’s proliferation of nuclear weapons and focusing on its widespread and ongoing abuses against its own people. That is a false choice. We must do both. As we have seen throughout history, the way countries treat their own citizens – particularly those countries that systematically commit atrocities against their own people – tends to align closely with the way they treat other countries and the norms of our shared international system.
On November 23, a week after the UN’s Third Committee adopted its DPRK resolution, North Korea’s military said “all those involved in its adoption deserve a severe punishment” and warned, again, of “catastrophic consequences.” Now here, presumably, “all” would imply the more than 100 Member States who voted for the resolution. The military also that said if Japan “continued behaving as now, it will disappear from the world map.”
When a country threatens nuclear annihilation because it receives criticism of how it treats its own people, can there be any doubt regarding the connection between North Korea’s human rights record and international peace and security?
North Korea did not want us to meet today, and vociferously opposed the country’s human rights situation being added to the Security Council’s agenda. If the DPRK wants to be taken off the Security Council’s agenda, it can start by following the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations to: acknowledge the systematic violations it continues to commit; immediately dismantle political prison camps and release all political prisoners; allow free and unfettered access by independent human rights observers; and hold accountable those most responsible for its systematic violations.
Knowing the utter improbability of North Korea making those and a long list of other necessary changes, it is incumbent on the Security Council to consider the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendation that the situation in North Korea be referred to the International Criminal Court and to consider other appropriate action on accountability – as 116 Member States have urged the Council to do.
In the meantime, the United States will support the efforts of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a field-based office to continue documenting the DPRK’s human rights violations, as mandated by the Human Rights Council, as well as support the work of the Special Rapporteur. Both should brief the Council on new developments in future sessions on this issue.
It is also crucial that all of DPRK’s neighbors abide by the principle of non-refoulement, given the horrific abuses to which North Koreans are subjected to upon return, and provide unfettered access to the UNHCR in their countries. The United States will continue to welcome North Korean refugees to our country, and help provide assistance to North Korean asylum seekers in other countries.
It is reasonable to debate the most effective strategy to end the nightmare of North Korea’s human rights crisis. What is unconscionable in the face of these widespread abuses – and dangerous, given the threat that the situation in the DPRK poses to international peace and security – is to stay silent. Silence will not make the North Korean government end its abuses. Silence will not make the international community safer.
Today, we have broken the Council’s silence. We have begun to shine a light, and what it has revealed is terrifying. We must continue to shine that light, for as long as these abuses persist. Today’s session is another important step – but far from the last – towards accountability for the crimes being perpetrated against the people of North Korea. The Council must come back to speak regularly about the DPRK’s human rights situation – and what we can do to change it – for as long as the crimes that brought us here today persist. That is the absolute minimum we can and must do.
Thank you, Mr. President.
ATTORNEY AND WIFE SETTLE CHARGES OF TRADING ON CLIENT CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
FROM: U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 23167 / December 22, 2014
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Shivbir S. Grewal and Preetinder Grewal, Civil Action No. 8:14-CV-02026 (C.D. Cal., Dec. 22, 2014)
SEC Charges Corporate Attorney and Wife with Insider Trading On Client's Confidential Information
The SEC alleges that while serving as outside counsel to Spectrum Pharmaceuticals last year, Shivbir Grewal learned that the company was on the brink of announcing a significant decline in expected revenue due to an unanticipated drop in orders for its top-selling drug. Grewal sold his entire investment in Spectrum stock within 48 hours of getting the nonpublic information from company officials who sought the disclosure advice of his law firm. He tipped his wife Preetinder Grewal, who also sold all of her Spectrum shares on the basis of the nonpublic information. The day after Grewal sold her stock, Spectrum issued a press release revealing the expectation of decreased sales of the drug Fusilev and the consequent expectation of reduced revenue, and Spectrum's stock price fell more than 35 percent. Shivbir Grewal and his wife avoided losses of nearly $45,000 by selling ahead of the bad news.
The Grewals agreed to pay $90,000 to settle the SEC's charges, and Shivbir Grewal also agreed to be suspended from practicing as an attorney before the SEC on behalf of any publicly traded company or other entity regulated by the agency.
The SEC's complaint alleges that the Grewals violated Sections 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as well as Rule 10b-5. Without admitting or denying the allegations, the Grewals agreed to be permanently enjoined from violating these provisions of the securities laws. Shivbir Grewal agreed to pay disgorgement of $30,343.17, prejudgment interest of $997.68, and a penalty of $30,343.17. Preetinder Grewal agreed to pay disgorgement of $14,400.05, prejudgment interest of $476.73, and a penalty of $14,400.05. The settlement is subject to court approval.
The SEC's investigation, which is continuing, is being conducted by Lance Jasper and Spencer Bendell in the Los Angeles Regional Office.
Litigation Release No. 23167 / December 22, 2014
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Shivbir S. Grewal and Preetinder Grewal, Civil Action No. 8:14-CV-02026 (C.D. Cal., Dec. 22, 2014)
SEC Charges Corporate Attorney and Wife with Insider Trading On Client's Confidential Information
The SEC alleges that while serving as outside counsel to Spectrum Pharmaceuticals last year, Shivbir Grewal learned that the company was on the brink of announcing a significant decline in expected revenue due to an unanticipated drop in orders for its top-selling drug. Grewal sold his entire investment in Spectrum stock within 48 hours of getting the nonpublic information from company officials who sought the disclosure advice of his law firm. He tipped his wife Preetinder Grewal, who also sold all of her Spectrum shares on the basis of the nonpublic information. The day after Grewal sold her stock, Spectrum issued a press release revealing the expectation of decreased sales of the drug Fusilev and the consequent expectation of reduced revenue, and Spectrum's stock price fell more than 35 percent. Shivbir Grewal and his wife avoided losses of nearly $45,000 by selling ahead of the bad news.
The Grewals agreed to pay $90,000 to settle the SEC's charges, and Shivbir Grewal also agreed to be suspended from practicing as an attorney before the SEC on behalf of any publicly traded company or other entity regulated by the agency.
The SEC's complaint alleges that the Grewals violated Sections 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as well as Rule 10b-5. Without admitting or denying the allegations, the Grewals agreed to be permanently enjoined from violating these provisions of the securities laws. Shivbir Grewal agreed to pay disgorgement of $30,343.17, prejudgment interest of $997.68, and a penalty of $30,343.17. Preetinder Grewal agreed to pay disgorgement of $14,400.05, prejudgment interest of $476.73, and a penalty of $14,400.05. The settlement is subject to court approval.
The SEC's investigation, which is continuing, is being conducted by Lance Jasper and Spencer Bendell in the Los Angeles Regional Office.
COURT ORDERS RBC TO PAY $35 MILLION FOR ILLEGAL, FICTITIOUS, NONCOMPETITIVE TRANSACTIONS
FROM: U.S. COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION
December 18, 2014
Federal Court Orders Royal Bank of Canada to Pay $35 Million Penalty for Illegal Wash Sales, Fictitious Sales, and Noncompetitive Transactions
Canadian Bank Traded Single Stock Futures and Narrow-Based Stock Index Futures on OneChicago Futures Exchange
Washington, DC – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced that on December18, 2014, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a Consent Order for Permanent Injunction and Civil Monetary Penalty against Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) for engaging in more than 1,000 illegal wash sales, fictitious sales, and noncompetitive transactions over a three-year period. The Order enjoins RBC from committing future violations of the wash sale, fictitious sale, and noncompetitive transaction prohibitions of the Commodity Exchange Act and the CFTC’s Regulations, and requires RBC to pay a civil monetary penalty of $35 million.
CFTC Director of Enforcement Aitan Goelman stated: “Illegal wash trades may seem innocuous. They are not. They provide misleading signals to the market and are thus prohibited, whether their purpose is to lessen a foreign tax bill or another reason. This matter clearly demonstrates that the CFTC will vigorously enforce this prohibition to protect the integrity of our markets.”
The court’s Order arises from a Complaint filed by the CFTC on October 17, 2012, that charged RBC with engaging in illegal wash sales, fictitious sales, and noncompetitive transactions involving stock futures contracts, among other illegal conduct (see CFTC Press Release 6223-12, April 2, 2012). In its Order, the court found that between June 1, 2007 and May 31, 2010, RBC knowingly executed 1,026 illegal wash sales and fictitious sales of narrow-based stock index futures (NBI) and single stock futures (SSF) contracts. RBC conducted the transactions as block trades through its branches and internal trading accounts trading opposite two of RBC’s off-shore subsidiaries, and executed the trades on the OneChicago, LLC futures exchange in Chicago, Illinois. The court also found that RBC’s NBI and SSF transactions were noncompetitive transactions prohibited by CFTC Regulations.
According to the Order, senior RBC personnel designed the trading strategy, which was motivated in part by tax benefits it generated for the RBC corporate group. The Order states that, as designed, RBC and its subsidiaries entered into the NBI and SSF trades so that RBC entities would be both buyer and seller in the transactions, initiated with the express or implied understanding that they would later unwind the positions opposite each other through offset or delivery, and that the trades were equal and offsetting in all material respects: They involved the trading of the same quantity of the same futures contracts at the same price and time, and therefore achieved a wash result for RBC. Further, the Order states that the employees who oversaw RBC’s NBI and SSF trading knew that the trades negated the market risk inherent in normal futures transactions because the profits and losses that accrued to the RBC entities participating in the trades were ultimately consolidated in the RBC corporate group’s overall profits and losses, where they netted to zero, and were therefore economic and futures market nullities for the bank.
Finally, the Order finds that RBC’s trades were noncompetitive because RBC failed to timely report part of each trade to the OneChicago futures exchange, in violation of the exchange’s written rules. Because the trades did not comply with the written rules of the exchange, they violated a CFTC Regulation requiring futures transactions to be executed openly and competitively on designated contract markets in accordance with the exchange’s written rules.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this action are David Slovick, Lindsey Evans, Susan Gradman, Amanda Harding, Joseph Patrick, Scott Williamson, Rosemary Hollinger, and Richard Wagner. The Division of Enforcement also recognizes the contributions of CFTC Division of Market Oversight staff.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
SECRETARY KERRY'S STATEMENT ON NORTHERN IRELAND AGREEMENT
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Success of Northern Ireland Talks
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
December 23, 2014
The United States warmly welcomes that announcement today of an agreement among Northern Ireland's political parties, facilitated by the U.K. and Irish governments.
This is statesmanship, pure and simple, and leadership by all parties to break a political impasse and avoid a fiscal crisis by resolving complex budgetary and welfare issues. The agreement reforms institutional arrangements, which will improve governance in Northern Ireland, and advances Northern Ireland’s peace process by establishing new institutions to deal with the often divisive legacy of the past – including a Historical Investigations Unit, an Independent Commission for Information Retrieval, an Implementation and Reconciliation Group, and an Oral History Archive. The agreement on legacy issues is based largely on negotiations led last year by former Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Richard Haass.
I commend the parties for working together through some very contentious issues – and finding solutions that will promote a more peaceful and hopeful future for the people of Northern Ireland. The agreement will now go through party structures for endorsement.
The U.K. Government also played a critical role in the talks’ success by agreeing to provide financial support, including new funding to implement the arrangements for dealing with legacy issues and to promote shared and integrated education.
I applaud the parties and the two governments for securing this agreement and pledge America’s full political support for the new arrangements. I'm also particularly grateful to my Personal Representative, Senator Gary Hart, and his Deputy Greg Burton, whose deep engagement helped ensure the success of the talks. I know Senator Hart looks forward to continuing his efforts next year in support of a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland, and I am very lucky to have Gary devoting his time to this effort.
Success of Northern Ireland Talks
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
December 23, 2014
The United States warmly welcomes that announcement today of an agreement among Northern Ireland's political parties, facilitated by the U.K. and Irish governments.
This is statesmanship, pure and simple, and leadership by all parties to break a political impasse and avoid a fiscal crisis by resolving complex budgetary and welfare issues. The agreement reforms institutional arrangements, which will improve governance in Northern Ireland, and advances Northern Ireland’s peace process by establishing new institutions to deal with the often divisive legacy of the past – including a Historical Investigations Unit, an Independent Commission for Information Retrieval, an Implementation and Reconciliation Group, and an Oral History Archive. The agreement on legacy issues is based largely on negotiations led last year by former Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Richard Haass.
I commend the parties for working together through some very contentious issues – and finding solutions that will promote a more peaceful and hopeful future for the people of Northern Ireland. The agreement will now go through party structures for endorsement.
The U.K. Government also played a critical role in the talks’ success by agreeing to provide financial support, including new funding to implement the arrangements for dealing with legacy issues and to promote shared and integrated education.
I applaud the parties and the two governments for securing this agreement and pledge America’s full political support for the new arrangements. I'm also particularly grateful to my Personal Representative, Senator Gary Hart, and his Deputy Greg Burton, whose deep engagement helped ensure the success of the talks. I know Senator Hart looks forward to continuing his efforts next year in support of a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland, and I am very lucky to have Gary devoting his time to this effort.
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