17 Nov:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/hermitage-saga-turns-tragic-fund-lawyer-dies-jail
The saga of Hermitage Capital, whose clip highlighting its recent plight we posted previously, has just taken a turn for the sad and surreal. The WSJ reports that 37 year old Sergei Magnitsky, Hermitage’s lawyer has died in custody. As a reminder Sergei was arrested in November of 2008: “Sergei Magnitsky, a legal and accounting adviser for Moscow-based law firm Firestone Duncan, was detained Monday [November 24th] after a raid on his home and police issued a formal warrant for his arrest two days later, said Bill Browder, chief executive officer of Hermitage Capital Management.”
Reports the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Magnitsky, a 37-year-old partner at Moscow firm Firestone Duncan, was jailed nearly a year ago on charges of tax evasion related to his work for Hermitage. At a court hearing on extending his detention in September, he complained that he had been denied medical treatment for weeks for serious stomach pancreatic illnesses that he hadn’t suffered from before his imprisonment. He also complained of inhumane conditions — including the absence of toilet, hot water and windows — at the Butyrskaya jail where he was then being held.
“They held him for 11 months, asking him to fabricate testimony against Hermitage,” said Jamison Firestone, managing partner of Firestone Duncan. “The more he refused, the worse his conditions became.”
If convicted of tax fraud, Mr. Magnitsky would have faced up to six years in prison. Russian officials have denied pressuring Mr. Magnitsky for testimony.======================================
Goldman Sachs and Buffett plan to steal CIT’s business
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009Full story here from ZeroHedge. Ah the avuncular face for the Vampire Squid…yes that will soothe many hearts as wallets are picked clean.
“The latest plot by OCTOsquared (the Octopus and the Octogenarian, well, technically Buffett is still 79 years young, but give him a few hundred days until August 1, 2010) is to take advantage of CIT’s bankruptcy by poaching thousands of small and medium business clients. The timing, of course, could not be more opportunistic. Bloomberg reports that “Goldman Sachs Group Inc., under fire in Washington for setting aside billions of dollars for bonuses a year after getting a taxpayer bailout, is preparing to team up with billionaire investor Warren Buffett to provide assistance to small businesses, said people familiar with the matter.” This so-called “charitable effort”, which is nothing but a vulture scheme to take advantage of yet more market dislocations and have the octopus grow a few more tentacles in its endless quest of financial monopolist supremacy, will of course be spun as indicative of the dynamic duo’s endless humanism. That the squid will have the backing of the greatest US cheerleader in recent history (else those written index puts may rear their ugly head once again), biggest TARP beneficiary, and the largest Goldman shareholder, is also not all that surprising. (more…)
Tags: Goldman Sachs, Warren Buffett
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