4 ms·

Reading back the messages on libor fixing is why I have a "how would this look being read out in court" mental check before communicating with colleagues on int

by smcl 10y ago

Reading back the messages on libor fixing is why I have a "how would this look being read out in court" mental check before communicating with colleagues on internal IM or email. There's nothing illegal that I do (or even that I can do, really) but I've no idea what anyone else is up to, and it would be extremely embarrassing for a silly in-joke or throwaway comment to be taken completely out of context. What these folks were up to was pretty bad but the pally, casual way they talked about it probably didn't help them one bit.

kasey_junk 10y ago
Its one thing I try to keep in mind when reading news articles that pull quotes from court transcripts. If you pulled random quotes from many of my chat transcripts, even in professional settings, they might seem insanely terrible without context. Just yesterday I said in chat that I needed to "put a bullet in his head". The "his" in that quote was an old daemon that was performing badly and needed to be shut down.
m-i-l 10y ago
What I'm curious about is when he said things like "I'll pay you, you know, $50,000, $100,000, whatever. Whatever you want, all right?", was it just hot air, or did he actually follow through with these people? And if so, how (bank transfer, super-cars as gifts, cash in briefcases, etc.), and why weren't these picked up by things like Anti Money Laundering, Gifts & Entertainment policies etc.?
cm2187 10y ago
If you are not completely paranoid already, the Fabrice Tourre scandal should push you over the edge. The SEC and congress edited sentences and took them out of context in a pretty shameless way. Two examples I noted: First the SEC quotes Tourre "More and more leverage in the system, The whole building is about to collapse anytime now…Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab[rice Tourre]…standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstruosities!!!" [1] Where the actual sentence was (translating the bits in French): You should take a look at this article... Very insightful... More and more leverage in the system, the whole building is about to collapse anytime. Only potential survivor, the fabulous fab (as Mitch would kindly call me, even though there is nothing fabulous about me, just kindness, altruism and deep love for some gorgeous and super-smart French girl in London), standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all the implications of these monstruosities!!! Anyway, not feeling too guilty about this, the real purpose of my job is to make capital markets more efficient and ultimately provide the US consumer with more efficient ways to leverage and finance himself, etc [2] I wouldn't write that in an email, but still, the sentence has a very different meaning with the bits edited out by the SEC back in. Second example, one of Tourre's managers was quoted writing "boy that timeberwof was one shitty deal". This was repeated over and over by congress as if it was a reference to the quality of the collateral of the transaction, i.e. Goldman Sachs sells some product to a client that they call internally a shitty product. But if you look at the actual email trail [3], they are not discussing about the quality of the collateral in that CDO, but of the fact that they are left with a $300m unsold position, which understandably is undesirable as a market maker. So my advice to everyone. No personal stuff in professional emails. No humor, no joke, no second degree, no sarcasm. None of that is safe. The sentence you add at the end to provide context in case a third party reads it will not help you, it will be edited out. [1] https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2010/comp-pr2010-59.pdf https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2010/comp-pr2010-5... page 7 [2] http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01623/Fabrice_Tourre_ema_1623617a.pdf http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01623/Fabrice_To... [3] http://www.hsgac.senate.gov//imo/media/doc/Financial_Crisis/FN1623-2406.pdf?attempt=2 http://www.hsgac.senate.gov//imo/media/doc/Financial_Crisis/... page 224
- smcl 10y ago
  That's insane - previously I'd noted that some court cases in the US seemed geared towards finding someone who could be dressed up and manipulated to look guilty, and then just throw the full might of the law (and the media) at them. This only confirms this - there's no way anyone's reading that original sentence and editing it that way unless they're just casting about for a scapegoat
  - cm2187 10y ago
    And interestingly it is probably Goldman who designated this guy as a scapegoat. The email is unrelated to any transaction, and was clearly selected and sent by GS to the SEC for that purpose. To their credit, the senators that grilled Goldman executives over this thing asked GS why they sent this to the SEC other than to give them a scapegoat.
    - smcl 10y ago
      Wow - the plot thickens! I need to escape the world of finance I think :)

by smcl 10y ago

kasey_junk 10y ago

Its one thing I try to keep in mind when reading news articles that pull quotes from court transcripts. If you pulled random quotes from many of my chat transcripts, even in professional settings, they might seem insanely terrible without context. Just yesterday I said in chat that I needed to "put a bullet in his head". The "his" in that quote was an old daemon that was performing badly and needed to be shut down.

m-i-l 10y ago

What I'm curious about is when he said things like "I'll pay you, you know, $50,000, $100,000, whatever. Whatever you want, all right?", was it just hot air, or did he actually follow through with these people? And if so, how (bank transfer, super-cars as gifts, cash in briefcases, etc.), and why weren't these picked up by things like Anti Money Laundering, Gifts & Entertainment policies etc.?

cm2187 10y ago

If you are not completely paranoid already, the Fabrice Tourre scandal should push you over the edge. The SEC and congress edited sentences and took them out of context in a pretty shameless way. Two examples I noted: First the SEC quotes Tourre "More and more leverage in the system, The whole building is about to collapse anytime now…Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab[rice Tourre]…standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstruosities!!!" [1] Where the actual sentence was (translating the bits in French): You should take a look at this article... Very insightful... More and more leverage in the system, the whole building is about to collapse anytime. Only potential survivor, the fabulous fab (as Mitch would kindly call me, even though there is nothing fabulous about me, just kindness, altruism and deep love for some gorgeous and super-smart French girl in London), standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all the implications of these monstruosities!!! Anyway, not feeling too guilty about this, the real purpose of my job is to make capital markets more efficient and ultimately provide the US consumer with more efficient ways to leverage and finance himself, etc [2] I wouldn't write that in an email, but still, the sentence has a very different meaning with the bits edited out by the SEC back in. Second example, one of Tourre's managers was quoted writing "boy that timeberwof was one shitty deal". This was repeated over and over by congress as if it was a reference to the quality of the collateral of the transaction, i.e. Goldman Sachs sells some product to a client that they call internally a shitty product. But if you look at the actual email trail [3], they are not discussing about the quality of the collateral in that CDO, but of the fact that they are left with a $300m unsold position, which understandably is undesirable as a market maker. So my advice to everyone. No personal stuff in professional emails. No humor, no joke, no second degree, no sarcasm. None of that is safe. The sentence you add at the end to provide context in case a third party reads it will not help you, it will be edited out. [1] https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2010/comp-pr2010-59.pdf https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2010/comp-pr2010-5... page 7 [2] http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01623/Fabrice_Tourre_ema_1623617a.pdf http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01623/Fabrice_To... [3] http://www.hsgac.senate.gov//imo/media/doc/Financial_Crisis/FN1623-2406.pdf?attempt=2 http://www.hsgac.senate.gov//imo/media/doc/Financial_Crisis/... page 224

smcl 10y ago
That's insane - previously I'd noted that some court cases in the US seemed geared towards finding someone who could be dressed up and manipulated to look guilty, and then just throw the full might of the law (and the media) at them. This only confirms this - there's no way anyone's reading that original sentence and editing it that way unless they're just casting about for a scapegoat
- cm2187 10y ago
  And interestingly it is probably Goldman who designated this guy as a scapegoat. The email is unrelated to any transaction, and was clearly selected and sent by GS to the SEC for that purpose. To their credit, the senators that grilled Goldman executives over this thing asked GS why they sent this to the SEC other than to give them a scapegoat.
  - smcl 10y ago
    Wow - the plot thickens! I need to escape the world of finance I think :)