– Perfect Timing: Goldman Sachs Set to Pay £3.5 Billion in Bonuses For Just 3 Months’ Work! (Times)



Goldman Sachs has been drawn into a fresh controversy as lawyers demand to know whether it was partly responsible for triggering Lehman Brothers’ downfall by shorting its rival’s shares.



Goldman has filed 8m documents with the SEC in relation to the investigation Photo: AP

The Wall Street behemoth is already being investigated by a number of financial regulators around the world in addition to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s fraud charges over derivatives mis-selling. It has now been named in a court filing seeking information about short-selling Lehman shares.

Goldman has been subpoenaed to hand over documents to Lehman’s Bryan Marsal, the man responsible for winding up the bank’s affairs and repaying creditors. Goldman was named in the court filing along with four other firms, including hedge funds SAC Capital and Citadel. Goldman declined to comment on the Lehman case.

In a further potential legal case, it emerged that AIG is considering suing Goldman over about $2bn (£1.3bn) of losses it incurred from past derivatives instruments. The troubled insurer is understood to be considering action as a result of protection it was forced to pay to buyers of credit-default swaps when collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) in Goldman’s Abacus programme lost their value.

The new worries came as Goldman hit back against the SEC’s charges, which it said are “completely unfounded both in law and fact”.

Questions were last night being asked as to why the bank had not publicly disclosed the regulator’s probe. It is understood Goldman was first contacted by the US financial watchdog over its examination of mis-selling in the mortgage-backed securities industry two years ago, and that it received what is known as a “Wells Notice” – an intention to file charges – as early as July last year.

Goldman has filed 8m documents with the SEC in relation to the investigation, and five of its staff were interviewed as part of an exchange which saw the bank attempt to defend its point of view. Lloyd Blankfein, the bank’s chairman, has been attempting to boost staff morale ahead of today’s first-quarter results, which are expected to show a profit of as much as $3.8bn. “The extensive media coverage on the SEC’s complaint is certainly uncomfortable, but given the anger directed at financial services, not completely surprising,” he said in one voicemail left on an employee’s phone.

Fabrice Tourre, the bond trader at the heart of the SEC’s probe, has begun an undetermined period of absence. The bank maintained that while he has done “nothing wrong” and remains an employee, he had made a “personal decision to take a bit of time off”.

President Barack Obama is to make a landmark speech on financial regulatory reform which is expected to draw on Goldman’s current problems.

Both BaFin, the German regulator, and the European Union are looking into the situation.

By James Quinn, US Business Editor

Published: 6:00AM BST 20 Apr 2010

Source: The Telegraph

This is how ‘doing God’s work‘ looks like:

– SEC Accuses Goldman Sachs of Civil Fraud

– Looting Main Street: How the nation’s biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece

– Goldman Sachs Squeezes Hedge Funds in $110 Billion ‘Collateral Arbitrage’

– Goldman Sucks

– Banksters Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide

– Secret AIG Document Shows That Goldman Sachs Minted Most Toxic CDOs

– Here Comes The Next Bubble: Carbon Trading

– Greek Debt Crisis: How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt

– The CDS Puppetmaster Behind It All And The Ever Increasing Parallels Between AIG And Greece

– The Illuminati Banksters: JPMorgan vs. Goldman Sachs

– Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows

– America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship!

– Ron Paul on FOX NEWS: Wall Street Bailout FRAUD

– The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: Financial Mafia Controlling US and Wall Street

– How Goldman Sachs Made Tens Of Billions From The Economic Collapse Of America In Four Easy Steps

– Goldman Sachs: Investors Could Only Lose in Offshore Deals

– Goldman Sachs: Betting Against All of Us

– Chinese firm says won’t pay Goldman Sachs on options losses!

– Goldman Sachs Banksters Arming Themselves With Pistols Against Public

– Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: I’m doing ‘God’s work’



– Wall Street Banksters To Pay $30 Billion Record Bonuses In 2009



– Absolute Perfection: Goldman Sachs Loses Money On Just One Trading Day In Q3

– Goldman Sachs: Trading Perfection And Statistical Improbabilities

– Goldman Sachs Takes On New Role: Taking Away People’s Homes

– CIT Bankruptcy Filing Expected in Days; $2.3 Billion Taxpayer Money to Be Wiped Out; Goldman Sachs Receives $285 Million In Termination Fees

– New York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for AIG Swaps Squandered Billions of Taxpayer Money:

…and remember who got the bailout money back then:

– AIG Discloses Counterparties as Obama, Cuomo Assail Bonuses:

This time the bailout money from the U.S. taxpayer went to:

Goldman Sachs led beneficiaries, with $12.9 billion, followed by SocGen, France’s No. 3 bank, with $11.9 billion, and Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest lender, with $11.8 billion. Barclays Plc received $8.5 billion from AIG, Merrill Lynch & Co. got $6.8 billion, Bank of America Corp. got $5.2 billion and UBS AG got $5 billion.

– US taxpayers pay Goldman Sachs for Swaps on Nonexistent Bonds

– The Goldman Sachs Bankster Casino – Where The Hell Is The Outrage?

– US: Utah approved a $27.3 million incentive package to keep Goldman Sachs, bringing the total amount to $47.3 million

– On the Edge with Max Keiser (09/04/09): The Banksters have free reign in America

– Goldman Sachs Loses Grip on Its Doomsday Machine

– Goldman Sachs Code Theft BOMBSHELL?



– Goldman Sachs Market Manipulation Dominance at Risk by Theft



– New Secrecy Rule Lets Goldman Sachs Control Stock Prices Unmolested by Public Scrutiny

– Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger’s site