Leumi (UK) buys Riggs Bank & Trust

[emad]

Haaretz

By Nathan Sheva

Bank Leumi's arm in Britain is to buy Riggs Bank & Trust (Channel Islands), registered in Jersey, for $25 million. Riggs Bank & Trust provides mainly private banking and trust services.

The agreement also covers the acquisition of two other banking operations from the parent company, Riggs Bank, and from affiliated companies. Leumi (UK) will be paying an additional $12 million for these loan and deposits portfolios. All the sums will be adjusted to the date of finalization, which should be in February, according to the terms of agreement.

The deal was approved by both the Bank of Israel and the authorities on Jersey. Bank Leumi (UK) will be acquiring Riggs' $120 million in customer deposits and investments, a credit portfolio of $165 million, and trust sums amounting to $430 million, most of which are in the Channel Islands.

Baruch Lederman, the chief executive of Leumi (UK), says the bank means to merge Riggs Bank & Trust with its own Bank Leumi Jersey operation, in St Helier. Leumi was the first Israeli bank to open a branch on Jersey, back in 1993. Buying Riggs is considered part of Leumi's international expansion strategy. Leumi (UK) has shareholders' equity of more than 100 million pounds sterling, and distributed dividends of 11 million pounds to its Leumi parent company.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/533859.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. I'm gonna be measured here

:wow:

[DulceDecorum]

5. International Diplomacy

December 20, 2004
According to records filed with the Justice Department, the Obiang regime has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on P.R. and lobbying in the past five years. Earlier in 2004, it paid C/R International $120,000 to coordinate meetings between Equatoguinean and American officials. The firm also helped secure banking facilities for the country’s embassy—a task necessitated by the Riggs scandal, which had forced Equatorial Guinea to take its money elsewhere. It also organized a visit to the U.S. for Obiang in the summer of 2004, just as news of the Riggs investigation was emerging. On June 17, Condoleezza Rice accepted an award for international diplomacy in Washington, exhorting the audience, “Americans must never excuse tyranny or corruption in Africa.” Sitting with Bill Clinton and the other guests of honor was Teodoro Obiang.

In spite of its success cozying up to the Bush administration, the Obiang regime realizes that it must clean up its image, if not its behavior. After the Senate report came out, it signed a $50,000-a-month contract with the New York-based Farragut Advisors to help “improve the country’s public image and reputation in the United States.”
http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/01/12_400.html

[seemslikeadream]

6. What Obiang didn't go with Burson - Marsteller?

:shrug:

Nigeria
B-M flacked for both the Nigerian Government and Royal Dutch/Shell during and after the Biafran war. Reports of instability and genocide at the time had hurt Nigeria’s international image, they hired B-M to discredit these reports<24>.
The relationship continued long after the Biafran war. From 1991-2 the Nigerian military junta paid B-M’s lobbying subsidiary, Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly (acquired in 1991) over $1m in fees<25>.

Indonesia
After the invasion of East Timor around 200,000 people, one third of the population were murdered, the Indonesian government has also been accused of genocidal policies against the peoples of Irian Jaya, amongst many other human rights abuses. In 1996, BM was hired by the Indonesian government to clean up its image<26>. B-M does however deny handling the issue of genocide in East Timor.

Argentina
BM worked for the Argentinian military junta led by General Jorge Videla, which seized power in a coup d'_tat in 1976. B-M’s job was to improve the country's international image and create the impression of stability to attract foreign investment. During Videla's reign, 35,000 people 'disappeared' and thousands of political prisoners were tortured. Videla is now serving a life sentence for murder.
Harold Burson commented that, "We regard ourselves as working in the business sector for clear-cut business and economic objectives. So we had nothing to do with a lot of the things that one reads in the paper about Argentina as regards human rights and other activities."<27>

Saudi Arabia, et al.
B-M has worked for a host of regimes with appalling human rights records including the notoriously repressive and corrupt government of Saudi Arabia, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, and the governments of Sri Lanka and Singapore<28>. Three days after the September 11th attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, in which 13 of the 16 alleged suicide bombers were Saudis, Saudi Arabia again hired B-M to ensure that its national image remains untarnished<29>.

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/burson/burson4.htm#repressive

[DulceDecorum]

7. Nah, someone told him

that BM stands for bowel movement.

He didn't know what that was
but after they explained it,
he sent the BM reps packing.

[Monkie]

2. hey thats the same jewish bank that wont pay out holocaust money

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/530496.html

"Bank Leumi, which holds most of the accounts of Jews who perished in the Holocaust, does not intend to pay the money it owes the survivors and victims' heirs at this stage. The bank made this clear despite the publication of the parliamentary inquiry commission on this matter last week."

"The Israeli banks set a prior condition to their cooperation with the commission (which they also helped fund, similarly to the settlement reached with the Swiss banks). They demanded the commission's authority be limited to examining the issue, but have no enforcing power"

"It appears therefore that without legislation the banks will avoid paying the money they owe according to the commission."

[DulceDecorum]

4. ... not quite. See it all started with the Knights Templar...

30 Jan 05
Where will Israel get NIS 100 million to pay the heirs of Holocaust survivors? Yehuda Bar-Lev CPA has discovered a small fortune that could almost completely cover the state’s obligations. He says that Bank Leumi (TASE: LUMI) has the treasure, but the bank says its does not have the money.
<snip>
With the outbreak of WWII, the British Mandatory Government in Palestine confiscated the Sharona neighborhood in Tel Aviv today’s south Ministry of Defense headquarters (kirya) compound. The residents of the neighborhood were German Templars. These were not ordinary enemy nationals; at a minimum, they were suspected, with good reason, of collaborating with the Nazi regime.

After WWII, the neighborhood remained in the hands of the British Mandate Custodian of Enemy Property. The Jewish authorities were very interested in the property, which was located in a very strategic area. The British, however, did not want to sell it to the Jewish Agency, out of fear of deviating from their neutral status in the Arab-Jewish conflict. The solution found was for the Tel Aviv municipality to purchase the neighborhood. The deal was signed in April 1948, a few weeks before the end of the British mandate.

The Tel Aviv municipality transferred the money to the Mandatory Government’s account at the Anglo-Palestine Bank (which later became Bank Leumi) in Jerusalem. After the state of Israel was declared, however, someone at Bank Leumi said, “Why should we pay the British? They’re not here anymore, so they’ll get along without a payment from us.” The British government thought otherwise, and repeatedly demanded its money from the Anglo-Palestine Bank. After losing patience, the British government filed suit for 1.79 million Israeli pounds (lira) against Bank Leumi in the Jerusalem District Court. At the time, one Israeli pound was worth £1.
<snip>
The claims were never resolved. The Israeli and British governments soon began high-speed negotiations over the financial aspects of the end of the British Mandate, and in 1950, reached an agreement that included the withdrawal of the British claim against Bank Leumi. At the same time, the state withdrew its claim against the bank.

What happened to the money? Opinions differ. In his report, Barlev wrote, “We do not know if the bank transferred the sum to the state, or to the Custodian General. Owing to time limitations and our priorities, we were unable to continue investigating the matter.” Informally, however, Bar-Lev’s office says that Bank Leumi kept the money, which is equal to NIS 75 million in current value. In that case, all the state has to do is demand that Bank Leumi hand it over.

Bank Leumi insists, “The matter is not connected with the property of Holocaust victims. It concerns accounts between the governments of the UK and Israel, to which the bank is not a party. A document was furnished to the committee proving that the Bank does not have the money.”
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/DocView.asp?did=879162&fid=980

[emad]

8. This Riggs subsidiary: I think this is the one that laundered the

$$$$$$$$$$s for Simon Mann and the other coup plotters. Somewhere in DU there's a link about this - the Jersey bank accounts also relate to Pinochet's money laundering.

Anone got the link?

[DulceDecorum]

3. Is Banque Leumi France still around?

December 30th, 18:50--Three of Israel's five leading banks are under investigation by French authorities as part of a larger, ongoing probe of a money-laundering network between France and Israel.
The network used Jewish charitable institutions and cultural institutions based in France to process illegally-acquired money.
An executive from Bank Leumi France SA is among those under investigation, alongside workers from Israel Discount Bank and the First International Bank of Israel according to recent reports. In November French officials said there were some 80 suspects in the case including six rabbis. Six people are reportedly already in jail.
"The misuse of banks by money laundering networks" is the judicial inquiry's focus said Leumi's French spokesman, noting that no charges have been placed.
http://www.rense.com/general18/laun.htm

French Investigating Judge Isabelle Prevost Desprez last week ordered eight French banks, including Banque Leumi France, to be indicted on serious money laundering charges.
<snip>
After the affair was disclosed, Bank Leumi stated that its involvement was solely technical.
Bank Leumi recently announced it was reducing its business in France and closing its branch in Paris, replacing it with a representative office. Banque Leumi France was opened in 1972.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=729749&fid=942

Several months ago, the examining magistrate decided NOT to put the eight banks on trial. The banks included Banque Leumi France and Societe Generale, France’s largest bank. The prosecutor filed an appeal against the decision, but the court upheld the examining magistrate's ruling.
A Bank Leumi (TASE: LUMI) spokesperson said in response that Banque Leumi France was suspected only of technical violations, and that the bank did not deliberately commit money laundering. Bank Leumi recently decided to close down its French branch, saying that the measure was a business decision.
(Corrects article published June 20, 2004).
http://www.globes.co.il/DocsEn/did=807327.htm

[emad]

10. The ELF oil scandal? I think Leumi France is still around and a

whole lot of French Politicians are cur5ently grassing each other up in the state investigation into backhandersthat slimed the deals through unnoticed for 10 years in the 1990s...

[emad]

9. Riggs flogging off the family silver to pay that new $16million fine?

How else are they going to raise the ante after being busted - yet again - last week?