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> The problem is not that Kabbaj was lying. It's that he was too charming. Elsewhere, this sort of thing would be called corruption, specifically bribery of a

• notahacker 10y ago
  Yeah. I've no sympathy whatsoever for the Libyan officials[1]. They made a bad bet and lost money. It wasn't a bet that was purposely designed to lose, and was apparently actually less risky than the conventional stock purchase.[2] Their claim not to have known what they were doing makes them more culpable, not less, for anything that went wrong because they were supposed to be looking after a sovereign wealth fund FFS. That doesn't mean that internships-for-deals or prostitutes-for-deals is an appropriate thing for a bank employee to be offering. [1]the picture is somewhat complicated by the legitimate beneficiaries - the Libyan people - having had very little say in who ran their sovereign wealth fund, and the Libyan regime having radically changed since 2007 [2]not only was it less damaging than the equivalent long position in stock would have been with the benefit of hindsight, but other articles suggest the Libyans preferred the derivative option because they were less likely to be subject to asset freezes/seizures if the US government took a more anti-Gaddafi stance in future...