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The year 2007 brought one of the biggest scandals in memory to hit the futures community. Brokerage Sentinel Management Group collapsed in what prosecutors later said was a fraud by its chief executive and its head trader, leaving customers out hundreds of millions of dollars. That December, one of the leaders of the industry, Russell Wasendorf Sr., warned authorities that beefing up policing in response would be overkill. "The regulators missed on this one, but fraud is not easily detected," Wasendorf wrote in an editorial in Stocks, Futures and Options, or SFO, an industry magazine he published. "Those who set out to line their own pockets have ways of hiding it, at least for a while." He knew what he was talking about. Unbeknownst to regulators, Wasendorf had been stealing from his customers' accounts for years, a fact he confessed after he tried to asphyxiate himself in a car outside Peregrine's headquarters in July. The dramatic end to his career came amid the implementation of electronic monitoring by regulators of Peregrine's accounts, a step Wasendorf had resisted. Interviews with former employees, colleagues and associates, as well as an examination of court filings and company documents seen by Reuters, paint a picture of an entrepreneur who, by using relatively simple tools, was able to keep regulators off the scent for years. He did this even as his behavior grew increasingly showy and erratic. As the financial shocks of 2008 savaged his business, Wasendorf went on a multiyear shopping binge, finishing an eco-friendly $24 million headquarters, opening a gourmet Italian restaurant in Cedar Falls, breaking ground on a second kitchen nearby, and installing a wood-fired pizza oven in his backyard. Wasendorf pleaded guilty to mail fraud, embezzlement and lying to regulators last week. He remains in solitary confinement and under suicide watch inside an Iowa jail. Related Article: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/09/26/How-Did-Regulators-

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bp holdings barcelona CINCINNATI (CN) - The 6th Circuit tossed an $82.6 million judgment against companies accused of using false Medicare claims to bilk millions from taxpayers. In a federal whistle-blower complaint, the United States claimed that Renal Care Group, Renal Care Group Supply Co. and Fresenius Medical Care Holdings recklessly disregarded federal law between 1999 and 2005 when billing Medicare for home dialysis supplies and equipment. The government claimed that Renal Care Group had submitted false claims for equipment provided to home dialysis patients, and set up a sham billing company that interfered with patients' choice of supply options and forced their business. U.S. District Judge William Haynes awarded the government $82.6 million at summary judgment, but the federal appeals court reversed Friday. It found that there was no evidence that the defendants acted with actual knowledge or deliberate ignorance of the truth. "The defendants did not act with reckless disregard of the alleged falsity of their submissions to Medicare," Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. wrote for a three-member panel. "And given that there is no evidence in the record that they acted with actual knowledge (in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(1)(A)(i)), or in deliberate ignorance of the truth (in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(1)(A)(ii)), they are therefore not liable under Count One of the complaint for False Claims Act liability." The case has been remanded back to federal court. bp holdings barcelona

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http://jazonmert.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/the-irs-wants-to-shrink-payments-to-tax-fraud-whistleblowers-bp-spain-holdings-madrid-articles/ FORTUNE -- Hoping to win millions of dollars from the Internal Revenue Service for exposing tax fraud? It's going to get even tougher -- and some powerful people in Washington are not amused. In January, Sen. Charles Grassley, the 79-year-old Iowa Republican, chastised acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller over his recent proposal to restrict the agency's whistleblower program, already an object of criticism since its creation in 2006. The proposed curbs, Grassley wrote in a letter to Miller, showed one thing: that the IRS and its boss, the Treasury Department, "view whistleblowers with hostility." What exactly is at issue? The current whistleblower rules say a tipster can collect a reward of 15%-30% of proceeds brought in as a direct result of a tip. The dirt has to involve tax evasion of at least $2 million or tax fraud by an individual making at least $200,000 a year. Miller's proposed restrictions will likely shrink payouts. Among the curbs: making it nearly impossible for whistleblowers to share in rewards stemming from a company's inflation of losses, and excluding from rewards any money brought in from so-called Fbar fines. These draconian fines, levied on offshore tax evaders, are often dozens and even hundreds of times the amount of actual back-tax an evader must pay. MORE: 3 things Jamie Dimon might have meant when he said he was 'richer than you' But here's the rub in this unusual political fight: Even in its current structure, very few whistleblower claims get paid, thanks to bureaucratic foot-dragging at the IRS, according to lawyers representing whistleblowers. Despite receiving more than 1,960 claims since 2006, the IRS made its first payment only in 2011. In total, it has paid only three claims. The biggest: $104 million to convicted felon Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS AG private banker who kick-started the

bp holdings barcelona http://bpholdingsbarcelonaandmadridspain.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/bp-holdings-medicare-fraud-ruling-83m.html CINCINNATI (CN) - The 6th Circuit tossed an $82.6 million judgment against companies accused of using false Medicare claims to bilk millions from taxpayers. In a federal whistle-blower complaint, the United States claimed that Renal Care Group, Renal Care Group Supply Co. and Fresenius Medical Care Holdings recklessly disregarded federal law between 1999 and 2005 when billing Medicare for home dialysis supplies and equipment. The government claimed that Renal Care Group had submitted false claims for equipment provided to home dialysis patients, and set up a sham billing company that interfered with patients' choice of supply options and forced their business. U.S. District Judge William Haynes awarded the government $82.6 million at summary judgment, but the federal appeals court reversed Friday. It found that there was no evidence that the defendants acted with actual knowledge or deliberate ignorance of the truth. "The defendants did not act with reckless disregard of the alleged falsity of their submissions to Medicare," Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. wrote for a three-member panel. "And given that there is no evidence in the record that they acted with actual knowledge (in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(1)(A)(i)), or in deliberate ignorance of the truth (in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(1)(A)(ii)), they are therefore not liable under Count One of the complaint for False Claims Act liability." The case has been remanded back to federal court. bp holdings barcelona RELATED ARTICLE: http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/11/51170.htm

article code 85258080768 CH, international bp spain holdings news madrid http://www.globalresearch.ca/soaring-markets-troubled-economies-towards-a-global-financial-downfall/5335658 Central banks run today's world. Money printing madness controls everything. Liquidity-driven markets reflect the power of bankers to do it. They're more powerful than standing armies. They can levitate markets. They can enrich themselves at the same time. They can do it while economies crater. The power of massive liquidity infusions combined with market manipulation generates huge profits. What can't go on forever, won't. What's going on now defies reason. Disconnect barely explains it. US equity markets hit record highs. So did Germany's DAX. Japan's Nikkei reached a five and a half year high. One recent headline read "Central banks pop champagne corks as stock markets soar." Another said "Which European Market Will Hit a Record High Next?" Turkey's BIST-100 topped 91,000 for the first time. Switzerland's SMI has a ways to go. It's headed in the right direction. Sweden's OMX Stockholm 30 and the OMX Nordic are closer. London's FTSE 100 looks poised for a record high. It could do so in weeks. Who said defying gravity's impossible? Markets are doing it with ease. Record valuations bear no relation to economic reality. Today's disconnect is unprecedented. Paul Craig Roberts expects an eventual triple bubble explosion. On the one hand, he says "rich elites are stealing everything for themselves." At the same time, he cites "three of the biggest bubbles in history." "The bond market, stock market and the US dollar" are levitating. (S)omething is going to go. This is possibly one of the riskiest years in Western civilization." Combined with police state enforcement and imperial wars, it's menacing. article

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http://www.slideshare.net/samuelelm/bp-holdings-oil-spill-news-update-22495088 Dear EarthTalk: The three-year anniversary of the 2010 BP oil spill just passed. What do green groups think of the progress since in restoring the region? --Mary Johannson, New York, N.Y. When an undersea oil well blew out 50 miles off the Louisiana coast on April 20, 2010, and caused an explosion on the Deep water Horizon drilling rig above it (killing 11 workers), no one knew that an even bigger disaster was yet to come. Over the next three months, 4.9 million gallons of crude poured into the water before BP could get the wellhead capped to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. According to BP, which has already spent $14 billion on clean-up and restoration, the Gulf is returning to baseline conditions prior to the disaster. "No company has done more, faster to respond to an industrial accident than BP did in response to the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010," the company reported. But not everybody sees the situation that way. Many environmentalists are concerned that, while BP has done a thorough job removing visible oil from the water column and surface, little has been done to repair damage to marine life and ecosystems. Related post: https://foursquare.com/v/bp-holdings-barcelona--madrid-spain/50532a6bd86cf18ca71817d6 http://archive.org/details/BpHoldings10TopTipsToBeatTheScammersBpHoldings http://syosset.patch.com/groups/bp-spain-holdings/p/combating-tax-fraud-bp-holdingsredgage Related Videos: http://www.behance.net/gallery/BP-Holdings-Oil-Spill-News-Update/9134075 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODnHf-8tZY&feature=youtu.be

(Reuters) - Spain's prime minister published his tax returns on Saturday in a bid to quell reports he and other conservative politicians received secret cash payments but the opposition said many questions remain unanswered. The government's website posted tax authority documents detailing Mariano Rajoy's income and tax payments from the past ten years. His ruling People's Party (PP) also revealed four years of financial accounts on Friday, in another attempt to put the matter to rest. The scandal, centered on ledgers supposedly made by a former party treasurer, have cut support for the PP to the lowest level on record and pushed up borrowing costs just as it seemed Spain was getting to grips with a financial crisis that had raised questions about the future of the euro zone. Former PP treasurer Luis Barcenas has described as fake handwritten ledger entries published on January 31 by El Pais newspaper purporting to show payments funded by construction firms made to PP leaders including Rajoy. Rajoy has said the payments were not made and that the party is organizing an external audit into the affair. The opposition Socialists said the published accounts of Rajoy and the PP did nothing to explain the Barcenas papers. Socialist spokeswoman Soraya Rodriguez said Spaniards wanted more than Rajoy's tax records. "Spaniards are fed up of waiting for answers that never come," she told journalists in Valladolid on Saturday. Cayo Lara of the United Left party said the publication of the accounts was meaningless as members of parliament have to declare their assets in any case. The tax returns do not cover the first half of the period of entries in the ledgers published by El Pais, which run from 1990 to 2009.

Thanks for the writeup. I definitely agree with what you are saying. I have been talking about this subject a lot lately with my father so hopefully this will get him to see my point of view.

http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9044263&contentId=7077294 Immediately after the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico, BP asked its most senior safety professional, Mark Bly, to lead an investigation relating to the causes of the incident and make recommendations to help prevent such accidents from occurring. The investigation led to 26 recommendations for reducing risk in BP's drilling operations. Since the report's publication in 2010, BP has made a significant progress in implementing those 26 recommendations. BP Magazine finds out more In September 2010, four months after the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico, BP released its Deepwater Horizon Accident Investigation Report, known as the Bly Report, concluding that the accident resulted from a complex, interlinked series of failures involving multiple parties. The report was the work of an investigation team led by BP's head of safety and operations, Mark Bly, and consisted of more than 50 technical and other specialists, drawn not only from BP but also the wider energy industry. The team made 26 recommendations specific to drilling, aimed at further reducing risk. Accepting all of these recommendations, BP committed to their implementation across its worldwide drilling operations and the recommendations are now in the process of being implemented into the well designs by engineers and operations personnel. That implementation is overseen by the global wells organisation (GWO), established by BP in April 2011 to facilitate a stronger, centralised and standardised approach to all BP-operated wells activity. "Our mission is to deliver safe, compliant and reliable wells for BP," says Richard Lynch, head of GWO. "We have to be very clear about the work we are doing and the risks involved, and have plans in place to manage those risks. "Successfully delivering the report's recommendations will standardise the way we work, and give us the base

bp holdings article code 85258080768, Feeding Frenzy fraud watch In the months after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded 300 miles off Florida's coast in April 2010, hotel and restaurant owners, fishermen and shopkeepers kept a grim vigil, waiting to see whether the millions of gallons of spilled oil would taint the state's beaches and harm its seafood. From a distance, thousands of others watched too, the Canadian, European and American tourists and business travelers who had hoped to rent the Tampa Bay, Sarasota or Naples hotel rooms, dine at the restaurants, shop at the stores, and meet in the conference halls along the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, many traveled elsewhere. Although no flocks of oil-soaked pelicans washed up on Florida's shores, and the 200 million spilled gallons did not blacken beaches as so many feared, the coastal communities and their businesses were nonetheless damaged by the BP oil spill, through economic losses - the visitors who never came. That is the contention of cities and counties, and thousands of business owners whose revenues fell in the months following the disaster. A number of Florida resorts and other businesses that sought early compensation for their losses - the plunge in expected revenue - found their requests denied, although London-based BP had set up a $20 billion fund for victims. But the firms couldn't prove their revenue declines were related to the spill. In December, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans gave final approval to a $7.8 billion partial class-action settlement providing for economic and property damages from the spill, including those in Florida. BP separately agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties and pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in the disaster, which cost 11 lives. Barbier now is presiding over a trial to determine whether BP was grossly negligent, with another $17 billion in potential penalties at stake. A new, streamlined process recognizes losses farther from the ex