JPMorgan, Lehman, UBS Named as Conspirators in Muni Bid-Rigging


March 26 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers
Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms
involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S.
state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed
in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.

A government list of previously unidentified "co- conspirators"
contains more than two dozen bankers at firms also including Bank of
America Corp., Bear Stearns Cos., Societe Generale, two of General
Electric Co.'s financial businesses and Salomon Smith Barney, the former
unit of Citigroup Inc., according to documents filed in U.S. District
Court in Manhattan on March 24. The papers were filed by attorneys for a
former employee of CDR Financial Products Inc., an advisory firm
indicted in October. The attorneys, as part of their legal filing,
identified the roster as being provided by the government. The document
is labeled "list of co-conspirators."

None of the firms or individuals named on the list has been charged
with wrongdoing. The court records mark the first time these companies
have been identified as co-conspirators. They provide the broadest look
yet at alleged collusion in the $2.8 trillion municipal securities
market that the government says delivered profits to Wall Street at
taxpayers' expense.

`Sufficient Evidence'

"If the government is saying they are co-conspirators, the
government believes they have sufficient evidence that they can show
they were part of the conspiracy," said Richard Donovan, a partner at
New York-based law firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP and co-chair of its
antitrust practice. Donovan isn't involved in the case.

Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith weighs in on tonight's story:


JP Morgan, Lehman, UBS Alleged as Conspring to Cheat Municipalities
on Investments
Yves Smith
Naked Capitalism
Friday, March 26, 2010

Now it is getting closer to being official. This Bloomberg story
reports that not only do Wall Street firms screw their clients (hardly a
novel revelation these days) but a large group of firms allegedly
conspired to price-fix on guarantee investment contracts, a product used
by government issuers to park cash raised via bond issues before they
deploy it...


*Capitalists are destroying America*



--
Conservatives - just pretend Obama's health care legislation is another
unnecessary war and you'll feel better about it.