Gorden Geckko Grows Up – Michael Douglas Makes Insider Trading Infomercial for FBI
Actor Michael Douglas, who famously played the Wall St. icon Gordon Geckko in the Oliver Stone film Wall St., has had a change of heart. The fictional fund manager once famously touted, “Greed is good.” Here is a video of some of the more notable quotes from Mr. Geckko in the movie:
The actor has recently teamed up with the FBI to create a video which encourages would be tipsters to come forward with any insider trading news, and outlines, that greed is not good. Here is the video:
Tipsters who decide to turn into rats and go to the government might do better then to follow Douglas’ advice. Whistleblower lawyer David K. Colapinto
outlines that, “If they just go to the FBI, they are probably going to get zero,” Colapinto said. “The FBI’s not obligated to do anything for them.”
Colapinto said that if informants want a reward for information that exposes financial fraud, they should consult a lawyer — and file a whistleblower claim with the SEC.
Under the SEC’s , tipsters are entitled to 10 to 30 percent of the money the SEC collects if the whistleblower’s information leads to an enforcement action in which sanctions of more than $1 million are ordered. The bounties were ordered by Congress in the aftermath of the financial crisis and were intended to be powerful weapond in the war on Wall Street fraud. That being said Harry Markopolos, who reported the Madoff fraud to the SEC for years, got nothing.
Attempting to diagnose whether or not a hedge fund has the potential to be exposed to insider trading scandals can be a critical part of analysis of a fund’s compliance and trading functions during the operational due diligence process. Investors should attempt to evaluate such risks during a review of operational risk factors including persona
l trading policies.
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Madoff Speaks, Allen Stanford Returns, Secondary Market for Madoff Claims and Hedge Funds Sweep for Bugs
It is being reported that Allen Stanford, is being transferred to join Bernie Madoff at the Butner Federal Correction Complex in North Carolina to undergo drug treatment:
It is also being reported that Madoff claims that many of the large banks and fund of hedge funds who invested with him were “wilfully blind” and “chose to ignore con.” Here is a video about it:
It also seems a secondary market has developed for betting on how successful Irving Picard will be in recovering Madoff claims…
Finally, the Financial Times is reporting that motivated by continued paranoia (is it paranoia if the government really is out to get hedge funds?…) surrounding government oversight of insider trading hedge funds have begun to hire security firms to perform sweeps their offices and homes for electronic bugs (aka: listening devices). Here’s a video about some of the technology used in these sweeps including hidden camera detectors, fiber optic cameras, spectrum analyzers, and non-linear junction detectors:
So what happens when they find one? Maybe it would be like when a man named Yasir Afifi found an FBI tracking device on his car and asked the Internet community to tell him if he was being spied upon. Perhaps hedge funds familiar with reverse engineering strategies could similarly reverse engineer the technology and begin spying on the government – or would that be considered insider trading….?
Insider Trading Update and The Wilpons, The Mets and Madoff
Here are a series of videos about recent hedge fund insider trading arrests / allegations:
Or perhaps so-called insider trading should be legalized?
And then of course there is the Wilpons and Madoff:
From CNBC:
ESPN’s take on the Wilpon / Madoff scandal (which the Wilpon’s claimed would not affect the NY Mets baseball team they own) including Larry King’s take on the subject:
Interesting Irving Picard’s lawsuit to clawback capital centers around the issue of operational due diligence red flags. Another interesting argument made Picard is that the Wilpon’s should have been even more aware of Madoff’s red flags because of their previous experience with Ponzi schemes. The Wilpon’s have a history of of investing with Ponzi’s schemes before – they invested in Sam Israel’s Bayou – perhaps Mario Cuomo may be able to mediate a settlement…
