"Russia withdrew a $22.7 billion lawsuit against Bank of New York Mellon Corp. Thursday, agreeing to a $14 million settlement and ending a case that critics said had theatened to further tarnish the already battered reputation of its judicial system. ... Russian officials, facing a deep recession and their first budget deficit in a decade, welcomed the financing, which they said would amount to $4 billion over five years. Matthew Biben, deputy counsel for the bank, called the deal a 'commonsense resolution.' ... In 2005, the bank paid $14 million in a nonprosecution agreement with the US government. ... After heavy lobbying by US officials, the Russian government last year decicded to settle the case. Negotiations took months, however", my emphasis, Gregory White at the WSJ, 23 October 2009, link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125619950075000879.html.
I mentioned the BNY case on 8 October 2009, link: http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2009/10/moscow-becomes-sec.html. I then wondered if "Russia got other concessions". Now the $400 million loan is $4 billion, an order of magnitude greater. Wait, will we see that the real source of the loan is Zimbabwe Ben & Co.? Why did US officials lobby for a bank?
1 comment:
The BONY answer consists of two words:
Tri-party repo
Fancy systemic stuff
You'd think the Fedsters would be broadening the infrastructure instead of protecting the too few parties... but no... couldn't have stable, open, transparent utilities... just rickety, overleveraged oligopolies...
Pity.
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