#securities fraud

[gorepup]

i made some sticker sheets + the tarot decks are finally finished. will be going on sale soon ;3

[lg5]

[j-august]

Though wouldn’t it be funny if this was the limit of AI misalignment? Like, we will program computers that are infinitely smarter than us, and they will look around and decide “you know what we should do is insider trade.” They will make undetectable, very lucrative trades based on inside information, they will get extremely rich and buy yachts and otherwise live a nice artificial life and never bother to enslave or eradicate humanity. Maybe the pinnacle of evil — not the most evil form of evil, but the most pleasant form of evil, the form of evil you’d choose if you were all-knowing and all-powerful — is some light securities fraud. 

Matt Levine, Money Stuff

[rjzimmerman]

Exclusive: Whistleblower Accuses Exxon of 'Fraudulent' Behavior for Overvaluing Fracking Assets For Years

ExxonMobil announced a $19.3 billion write-down on Tuesday, a big hit to a company reeling from depressed oil and gas prices and a rapidly changing global energy market.

Excerpt from this story from DeSmog Blog:

ExxonMobil announced a $19.3 billion write-down on Tuesday, a big hit to a company reeling from depressed oil and gas prices and a rapidly changing global energy market.

The write-down reduces the value of the assets on Exxon’s books. The announcement comes as part of the company’s fourth quarter earnings for 2020.

The fossil fuel giant, however, may be understating the financial damage to its assets, according to a former ExxonMobil employee turned whistleblower, Franklin Bennett. The oil major has overvalued its assets for years, according to Bennett and a team of advisors, a practice he describes as “fraudulent and defiant behavior” in a January 31 supplement to a whistleblower complaint he filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Bennett and his team argue that instead, the company has been overvaluing its U.S. oil and gas assets by as much as $56 billion, as of year-end 2019.

At the root of the SEC complaint is ExxonMobil’s 2010 purchase of shale fracking company XTO Energy, which it acquired at the height of the natural gas boom for $46 billion. In the months and years following the acquisition, natural gas prices collapsed, and never returned to previous heights, rendering much of XTO’s assets uneconomic to produce.

Until now, ExxonMobil largely refused to take a meaningful write-down on those assets, despite several downturns in oil and gas market conditions. In particular, a deep natural gas price slide in 2015–2016, and another in 2019, hollowed out the valuation of many high-cost shale gas assets. Through it all, Exxon never took a significant write-down, which Bennett and his team argue is illegal.

In accounting terms, Exxon essentially told regulators that they could still get full value from the assets that they paid for in 2010, despite the deterioration in the natural gas market, claims the SEC complaint.

Bennett, a former senior accounting analyst for ExxonMobil who spent seven years at the company between 1988 and 1995, alleges that this refusal to write down assets amounts to securities fraud because Exxon misled investors into thinking its assets were worth more than they really were. He and a team of advisors filed a whistleblower complaint in 2015 to the SEC, and have added new evidence to the docket in the intervening years.

[dragoni]

Trump’s Tax Fraud Timeline

Congress, get #TrumpTaxReturns

Conclusion

Let’s go over the different types of fraud discussed in this article: those that have been allegedly committed by the 45th President of the United States according to the Times’ exposé:

Gift tax fraud, where IRS fees on gifts are avoided by disguising them as loans or legitimate business transactions.

Securities fraud, where the value of stocks and investments are misrepresented in order to deceive investors or the IRS.

Loans fraud, where a loan is disguised as a different transaction in order to avoid involving a financial institution and setting fair interest rates.

Appraisal fraud, where the value of a property is misrepresented in order to manipulate mortgage rates or deceive the IRS.

Estate tax fraud, where the value of an individual’s estate is misrepresented in order to avoid paying a high percentage to the IRS.

Expense reports fraud, where business expenses are misrepresented in order to deceive a business or the IRS.

#TrumpSCAMS #RepublicansCOMPLICIT

[randyite]

TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE

[rjzimmerman]

Exxon faces nation's toughest anti-fraud law in New York climate trial

New York State does not have to prove Exxon intended to deceive investors on climate change, just that it succeeded and cost shareholders money

Excerpt from this Climate Liability News story:

Next week, Exxon will face what could be the company’s biggest threat yet: a trial in New York Supreme Court to determine whether it defrauded investors by deliberately misleading them about the risks posed to its business by climate change.  

New York Attorney General Leticia James alleges that Exxon violated the Martin Act, her state’s powerful anti-fraud statute. James alleges Exxon committed fraud, deceiving investors by using one set of numbers to calculate climate risk to shareholders while it used different numbers to privately plan how to invest the company’s own funds.  

The suit, which was filed last year, is the culmination of a lengthy investigation of Exxon’s actions and communications about climate change that began under Eric Schneiderman. The suit was filed by Barbara Underwood, who was appointed when Schneiderman resigned in 2018, and is being prosecuted by James, who was elected AG last year.

If proven true, the fraud could cost the company dearly.

The AG’s office has asked the court to hold the company liable for between $476 million and $1.6 billion in shareholder losses, and that’s only a preliminary estimate. The suit also asks the court to order an examination of Exxon’s past and future accounting methods and to appoint an independent monitor to supervise the process. Exxon has also been forced to turn over years of  internal documents, which could also be used by others to bring more civil suits.

James alleges “this fraud reached the highest levels of the company” to include former chief executive Rex Tillerson, who left the company in 2017 to become President Trump’s first Secretary of State, and current chief executive Darren Woods.

[rjzimmerman]

Trump's SEC 'determined to leave public in the dark' on climate change, Sierra Club alleges in lawsuit

The Sierra Club is suing the Securities and Exchange Commission for the first time ever over shareholder climate resolutions that were blocked by companies including Exxon Mobil with the approval of the SEC. The environmental group alleges that its request for public release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act has been stalled by the regulator.

Excerpt from this CNBC story:

The Sierra Club has filed a lawsuit challenging the Securities and Exchange Commission for its failure to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and disclose documents regarding what the environmental group called the agency’s “unprecedented rejections, on behalf of corporate polluters, of climate-related shareholder resolutions aimed at reducing harmful pollution, or adopting corporate sustainability and climate goals.”

Climate resolutions introduced by shareholders for annual meetings of companies have risen in recent years, but the SEC’s rejection of these proposals using what is called no-action letter relief have also increased under Trump administration. The agency has allowed companies not to hold votes on at least 12 climate-related shareholder resolutions in the last 18 months, including one that, if passed, would have compelled Exxon Mobil to disclose emissions targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

Before that, a 2018 shareholder resolution planned at EOG Resources was blocked by company with the SEC’s approval, and the agency saying in its no-action letter that the resolution “seeks to micromanage the Company by probing too deeply into matters of a complex nature which shareholders, as a group, would not be a in a position to make an informed judgment.”