Chiquita Brands International sued the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to block the release of documents related to payments the company made to terrorist groups in Colombia to protect its banana-growing interests according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

The company paid the Justice Department a $25 million fine in 2007, after admitting that it had given Colombian paramilitary groups that the U.S. classifies as terrorist organizations more than $1.7 million. Chiquita has maintained that it was extorted by the groups and made the payments in an attempt to protect its workers.

Chiquita’s newest legal action, filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., attempts to block the SEC from releasing documents tied to the case to the National Security Archive.

In 2007, the National Security Archive published thousands of documents from Chiquita that it said showed how the company and paramilitary groups had a mutually beneficial relationship.

NSA:

The "reverse" FOIA filing is the latest development in a four-and-a-half-year Archive legal effort to document Chiquita's financial relationships with illegal armed groups responsible for some of the worst human rights atrocities of Colombia's decades-old civil war.

The new case is the direct outgrowth of a 2010 lawsuit in which the Archive sought to compel the SEC to process a pair of FOIA requests relating to the Chiquita investigation. More than three years later the agency made its final decision with respect to legal, financial and other documents Chiquita turned over to the SEC during the course of its inquiries, granting confidential treatment to only 45 pages among some 23 boxes of responsive material. Chiquita's "reverse" FOIA action follows multiple attempts on its part to convince the SEC to reverse that decision.

In making its case against disclosure of the "Chiquita Payment Documents," the company cites FOIA Exemption (7)(B), which exempts from disclosure "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes" to the extent that production "would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication." 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(B). Chiquita claims that it is subject to two pending "adjudications," a consolidated civil suit filed in Florida on behalf on behalf of victims of the terrorist groups that Chiquita funded, and a preliminary criminal investigation now underway in Colombia.

A lawsuit filed by thousands of Colombians who claim their relatives were killed by the paramilitary groups is still working its way through federal court in Florida. The plaintiffs allege the paramilitary groups helped keep labor unions out of the banana fields and brutalized workers.

By Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica

Last week's admission by Sheldon Adelson's casino company that it had "likely" violated provisions of the federal law barring U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials raises some intriguing questions. Chief among them: Which transactions by Las Vegas Sands and its far-flung subsidiaries are at issue?

Adelson, one of the world's richest men, came to public prominence during the 2012 campaign, when he and his wife Miriam donated at least $98 million to various candidates and groups. Included was $30 million for the Restore Our Future super PAC that supported Mitt Romney and $20 million to Winning Our Future, a super PAC that backed Newt Gingrich. Late in the campaign, Adelson asserted that federal investigators had targeted his company because of his political activity.

The terse statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Las Vegas Sands noted "likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions of the FCPA" (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) had come to light after three independent members of the board investigated "matters" raised by a February 2011 subpoena from SEC investigators and by an ongoing Justice Department inquiry.

In a news release issued Sunday, the company said the violations it had detected related to the "accounting provisions" of the law, not its "anti-bribery provisions."

Several news organizations have examined Las Vegas Sands' efforts to build its gambling business in Asia. The Investigative Reporting Program of the University of California, PBS Frontline and ProPublica published a story last year that disclosed the role of a local lawyer/legislator in overcoming regulatory hurdles in Macau, an autonomous region of China that is home to some of the company's most lucrative casinos.

Subsequently, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal wrote detailed stories that centered on Yang Saixin, a shadowy Beijing businessman who told the Times that Las Vegas Sands had paid him $30,000 a month until his firing in 2009.

According to the Times' account, the company provided more than $70 million to companies tied to Yang to construct a trade center in Beijing and sponsor a basketball team. Several million dollars were "unaccounted for" after those projects were shut down, the Times reported.

Las Vegas Sands has declined to elaborate on its filing but did tell the SEC that "in recent years, the Company has improved its practices with respect to books and records and internal controls."

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi talked with Eliot Spitzer last night about Eric Holder's decision not to prosecute Goldman Sachs for the offenses laid out in the Levin report.

Taibbi had this to say afterwards:

"But that's exactly who Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer haven't been, exactly who Bob Khuzami at the SEC hasn't been. Instead of being fighters, they've been dealmakers and plea-bargainers. They've dealt out every major financial scandal, from Abacus to the Muni-bid-rigging cases (they prosecuted a few low-level guys at GE but let the big players at the big banks skate) to the Citigroup fraud settlement that was so bad a judge threw it back at the govenment's face. In that latter case, amazingly, the govenment is now fighting not for its constituents, but for its right to give out crappy deals to repeat-offender banks without judicial review."

Although the SEC recently asked Congress to pursue legislation that toughen laws and to raise financial penalties for fraud violations, a new report suggests that the Commission is avoiding tough sanctions already at its disposal.

Analysis shows that the Securities and Exchange Commission has been giving waivers to the biggest Wall Street firms in the last decade, letting them off on punishments meant to apply to fraud cases. The New York Times found nearly 350 instances in the last 10 years where the SEC has allowed financial giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America to have advantages reserved for only the most dependable of companies and avoiding punishments when their financial forecasts turn out to be wrong.

According to the report, JPMorgan Chase has settled six fraud cases in the last 13 years, but was granted at least 22 waivers. Bank of America has settled 15 fraud cases and received at least 39 waivers.

Via:

By granting exemptions to laws and regulations that act as a deterrent to securities fraud, the S.E.C. has let financial giants like JPMorganChase, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America continue to have advantages reserved for the most dependable companies, making it easier for them to raise money from investors, for example, and to avoid liability from lawsuits if their financial forecasts turn out to be wrong.

An analysis by The New York Times of S.E.C. investigations over the last decade found nearly 350 instances where the agency has given big Wall Street institutions and other financial companies a pass on those or other sanctions. Those instances also include waivers permitting firms to underwrite certain stock and bond sales and manage mutual fund portfolios.

JPMorganChase, for example, has settled six fraud cases in the last 13 years, including one with a $228 million settlement last summer, but it has obtained at least 22 waivers, in part by arguing that it has “a strong record of compliance with securities laws.” Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, which merged in 2009, have settled 15 fraud cases and received at least 39 waivers.

Only about a dozen companies — Dell, General Electric and United Rentals among them — have felt the full force of the law after issuing misleading information about their businesses. Citigroup was the only major Wall Street bank among them. In 11 years, it settled six fraud cases and received 25 waivers before it lost most of its privileges in 2010.

That $228 million fraud settlement by JPMorgan Chase last summer? It was to settle civil and criminal charges that it "cheated cities and towns by rigging bids with other Wall Street firms to invest the money raised by several municipalities for capital projects." Yet the S.E.C. granted three waivers related to that case for privileges that it otherwise would have lost.

The S.E.C. said waivers were granted because "the company’s fraudulent actions didn’t involve misleading investors about JPMorgan’s business."

Screw cities, towns and the people in them, but heaven forfend not the investors.

U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff is stepping up his fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission over its regulation of Wall Street. After accusing the regulator of negotiating a weak settlement with Citigroup, Rakoff said the SEC withheld important information that prevented him from doing his job.

The SEC isn’t taking Rakoff's attacks sitting down:

Meanwhile, the SEC took the dramatic step of asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to overrule a recent Rakoff decision by issuing a special writ generally reserved for cases in which a judge has grossly overstepped his bounds. Called a writ of mandamus, such a direct and personal challenge to a judge is far from a routine gambit.

The judge and the SEC are locked in an extraordinary battle over how the government should police financial fraud, and just when it seemed that the conflict could not get more contentious, Thursday’s development added a dimension.

Rakoff, who presides over major Wall Street cases from his bench in Manhattan, has been pushing the SEC to stop negotiating settlements in which firms accused of securities fraud neither admit nor deny wrongdoing. In a recent case involving a Citigroup mortgage deal in which investors allegedly lost more than $700 million, he rejected a settlement under which Citigroup would pay $285 million, saying it was “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest.”

Companies can look upon such settlements as “a cost of doing business,” he wrote.

A spokesman for the SEC issued a statement saying that the agency “will respond as appropriate in the proceedings before the Court of Appeals.”

[Via The Washington Post]

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Wall Street bankers and other financial and corporate "fat cats" are beginning to feel picked on and lonely, and they're not going to take it anymore. However, they may be hanging themselves with their own quotes that shall live forever in infamy.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., and the "highest-paid chief executive officer among the heads of the six biggest U.S. banks," joined hedge fund manager John Paulson, and Home Depot Inc. co-founder Bernard Marcus, and other sad and lonely billionaires in using speeches, open letters and television appearances to defend themselves - the richest 1 percent of the population - targeted by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators across the nation.

If these guys aren't feeling the love now, just wait until what they're saying in their pity-the-poor-billionaires public relations blitz reaches the majority of the 99 percent. The billionaires are letting go with their repressed inner selves, and if you thought this was a cold, soulless group before they wanted you to like them, just wait until you listen to the video and read this evil crap.

Bloomberg:

If successful businesspeople don’t go public to share their stories and talk about their troubles, “they deserve what they’re going to get,” said Marcus, 82, a founding member of Job Creators Alliance, a Dallas-based nonprofit that develops talking points and op-ed pieces aimed at “shaping the national agenda,” according to the group’s website. He said he isn’t worried that speaking out might make him a target of protesters.

"Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?”

...

Asked if he were willing to pay more taxes in a Nov. 30 interview with Bloomberg Television, Blackstone Group LP (BX) CEO Stephen Schwarzman spoke about lower-income U.S. families who pay no income tax.

“You have to have skin in the game,” said Schwarzman, 64. “I’m not saying how much people should do. But we should all be part of the system.”

...

Tom Golisano, billionaire founder of payroll processer Paychex Inc. (PAYX) and a former New York gubernatorial candidate, said in an interview this month that while there are examples of excess, it’s “ridiculous” to blame everyone who is rich.

“If I hear a politician use the term ‘paying your fair share’ one more time, I’m going to vomit,” said Golisano, who turned 70 last month, celebrating the birthday with girlfriend Monica Seles, the former tennis star who won nine Grand Slam singles titles.

...

[Leon] Cooperman, 68, [Omega Advisors Inc. chairman and former CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s money-management unit.] said in an interview that he can’t walk through the dining room of St. Andrews Country Club in Boca Raton, Florida, without being thanked for speaking up. At least four people expressed their gratitude on Dec. 5 while he was eating an egg-white omelet, he said.

“You’ll get more out of me,” the billionaire said, “if you treat me with respect.”

Be sure to read Max Abelson's entire report at Bloomberg here.

This just in via:

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged six former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with securities fraud on Friday for misrepresenting their holdings of high-risk mortgage loans.

The SEC is targeting three former executives of Freddie Mac, including chief executive officer Daniel Mudd, chief risk officer Enrico Dallavecchia and executive vice president of single-family mortgage business Thomas Lund.

The agency is also going after three former executives of Fannie Mae: CEO Richard Syron, executive vice president and chief business officer Patricia Cook and executive vice president for the single family guarantee business Donald Bisenius.

The SEC is seeking financial penalties against them, but did not specify an amount.

The headline for this really caught my eye, but there it is "financial penalties," big, freaking deal. They'll pretend to be ashamed, then pay their fines with federal TARP funds that came from our tax dollars.

There have been 5610 protesters arrested worldwide as of today.

Protesters: 5,610 Bankers: 0.