Ex-Goldman Compliance Worker Sued By SEC For Insider Trading

Zerohedge:

We already know that when it comes to obtaining “asymmetric info”, no bar is too low for Goldman, the company, which stooped so low as to use current and former NY Fed employees who leaked regulator data, a transgression which would normally lead to years behind bars for most mortals but for Goldman merely resulted in another slap-on-the-wrist fine. Now we also find that the same is true for Goldman’s employees.

Bloomberg reports that a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. employee “hired to help it monitor computer systems for illicit activity” used the company’s own inside information to invest in mergers and acquisitions involving the bank’s clients, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

In a lawsuit filed this week in Manhattan federal court, the SEC accused Yue Han of exploiting his access to Goldman Sachs’s information systems to make $468,000 by trading through his personal account and that of a relative.

Not surprisingly, said former employee decided his best odds of liquidating his illicit proceeds are on home soils and quickly left the US to go back to China.  Regulators are now asking a federal judge to freeze all assets still in the U.S.

CEO Of Brazil’s BTG Pactual Group Is Arrested

The CEO actually believed that he was too powerful to be arrested….

More details from Bloomberg:

The sweeping investigation into Petrobras — dubbed “Carwash” by prosecutors after a gas station used to launder money — has helped make Brazil’s real the world’s worst-performing major currency this year. Brazil’s economy is forecast to shrink more than 3 percent this year, according to a central bank survey of economists.

 

Esteves has been involved in various deals with Petrobras over the years, most notably Sete Brasil. BTG teamed up with Petrobras and other partners in 2010 to create the rig-supplier whose former operating chief admitted in plea bargains to crimes of corruption.

 

New arrests suggest the full impact of Carwash, or Lava Jato in Portuguese, “is still to come,” Joao Augusto de Castro Neves, director of Latin America for political consulting firm Eurasia Group, said in a note to clients Wednesday. “BTG Pactual has exposure to the oil and gas sector, and the arrest of its CEO is the first time the Lava Jato probe raises the earnest prospect of financial contagion.”

Judge Orders Rushmore Loan Servicing To Appear For Deposition (They Don’t Want to…And Appeal)

This is one of the more incredible and infuriating foreclosure cases that I’ve been involved with for several years now.  A foreclosure trial was held more than a year ago. For the reasons that are so clearly articulated in our Motion to Vacate the Final Judgment, namely our accusations that Rushmore Loan Servicing engage in misconduct in the course of the trial, we urged the judge to Vacate the Final Judgment.

Well….before we got to  a hearing on that motion, Rushmore Loan Servicing apparently decided that going through all the discovery on these things was going to be a very bad idea…so they filed their own Motion to Vacate Final Judgment.

Truly incredible…..Rushmore has a Final Judgment….but they agree that their own Final Judgment should be set aside.

Wonder why?

Well, the fact of the matter is all that Rushmore starts going nuts with all kinds of crazy motions, filled with even crazier statements within their motions:

From Rushmore:

Appellee can address all three of Appellant’s possible outcomes with a single response: the possible outcomes are not available options because Appellant has already submitted a motion to vacate judgment with the trial court, alleging the same “misconduct” as the proposed motion at bar. The trial court has already ruled against Appellant on this issue multiple times and to grant relinquishment of jurisdiction is the antithesis of judicial economy.

So here’s one of the things that really has Rushmore going full bore nuts…you see, in the attached Motion for Deposition that I have…I’m begging and asking the court to force Rushmore and their attorneys to sit for depositions so I can figure out exactly how they mysteriously came into possession of documents that they used at trial.  Have a look at this Motion that spells it all out:

MotionforDepoWALL

Read on.

How Bad Are Foreclosures in Florida? Nationstar Conceals A Mortgage Modification…And Wins Foreclosure!

Things have gotten so very bad in courtrooms these days, that banks are able to waltz right in and saunter right back out with foreclosure judgments in their favor with nearly no effort. And while that’s bad enough, this case illustrates how Nationstar Mortgage failed to disclose a mortgage modification…and just waltzed out of court with a judgment.

5 Q And you testified previously that that
6 modification of mortgage modified the terms of the
7 note and mortgage that have been introduced in this
8 case. Correct?
9 A Yes.
10 Q And your — the exhibits indicates that at
11 some point in time Nationstar had in its possession
12 the original modification of mortgage. Correct?
13 A Yes.
14 Q And so the account history purports to
15 explain to the Court what amounts were due and owing
16 from the Defendant. Correct?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And the Complaint asserts that there was a
19 default in the amount of payments — in the amounts
20 received from the Defendant. Correct?
21 A Yes, it does.
22 Q And the documents that are attached to the
23 Complaint are the note and mortgage, which contain one
24 very specific principal amount and a very specific
25 payment amount. Correct?
Page 59
1 A Yes.
2 Q And we agree that that principal amount,
3 that payment amount, all of the terms of that note and
4 mortgage were changed with this modification.
5 Correct?
6 A No, they were not.
7 Q Well, the principal amount decreased
8 significantly. Correct?
9 A It did. Correct.
10 Q And we agree that modified the note and
11 mortgage. Correct?
12 A Yes, it did.
13 Q But we don’t have that modification here as
14 part of the Complaint, do we? You never alerted the
15 Court or the Defendant or me to that modification.
16 Correct?
17 A I do not know.
18 Q Well, these books and records reflect that
19 the terms of the note and mortgage changed. Correct?
20 A They were reflecting accurate payment
21 history for the account.
22 Q Right. And the books and records reflect
23 that the note and mortgage, attached to the Complaint,
24 were modified. Correct?
25 A There was a modification. Yes.
Page 60
1 Q Okay. And I was going to say you testified
2 about the boarding process. But the fact of the
3 matter is that I said, ‘we all know about the boarding
4 process.’ In some of the discovery I see, your
5 records reflect, that you knew — that Nationstar knew
6 there was a modification. Correct?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Yet Nationstar chose not to produce that
9 modification when they filed the lawsuit. Correct?

Read on.

Auto-dealing congressman draws complaint

A watchdog group has called for the investigation of the actions of an auto-dealing congressman who proposed an amendment that would exempt his industry from a safety requirement.

The amendment, which passed the House of Representatives, was offered just before midnight on Nov. 11. It allows automobile dealers to rent or loan out vehicles even if they are subject to safety recalls. Rental car companies, meanwhile, don’t get the same treatment under the proposed law.

It was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, a self-described “second-generation auto dealer.”

The Campaign Legal Center in a letter sent Monday urged the House Ethics Committee and the Office of Congressional Ethics to review Williams’ actions and also recommended changes to clarify House rules concerning recusal and conflicts of interest by members.

The request was prompted by a Center for Public Integrity report posted last week. The story was also posted by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Texas Tribune.

Read on.

Officials say the darndest things

“It is unacceptable that The Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper from the U.K. are becoming the lead source of information about violent encounters between police and civilians. That is not good for anybody.”–FBI Director James B. Comey complaining about the lack of federal data on police use of force via The Washington Post.

CFPB: Complaints against Ocwen are falling

Perhaps constantly being under the microscope of regulators is having a positive impact on Ocwen Financial (OCN) and its standing with its customers.

According to a new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, complaints about Ocwen dropped by a significant margin in the last year.

The data comes from the CFPB’s latest snapshot report about its consumer complaint database, which showed that complaints about Ocwen in the last three months are down by 16% over the same time period last year.

According to the CFPB, that’s the largest decrease of any company in its list of the top 10 most-complained-about companies.

Read on.