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UPDATE 1-FACTBOX-Major scandals in recent years

Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:47pm IST
 
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 (Adds details, Enron entry)
 March 31 (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers (LEH.N: Quote, Profile, Research) filed suit
against Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp (8002.T: Quote, Profile, Research) on Monday
alleging it was scammed out of $352 million.
 Lehman alleges that Marubeni staff were responsible for the
swindle, which a source with direct knowledge of the matter
said involved forged documents and an impostor at Marubeni's
offices.
 Lehman says it also took appropriate reserves in the first
quarter. The investment bank also said it has insurance
coverage to offset any damage from the scam.
 For more on the story, please see [ID:nT254231]
 Investment banks can get hit by fraud perpetrated by rogue
traders and by people outside the firms.
 The following is a partial list of some of the major
financial frauds and trading scandals in recent years:
 April 1992 - Indian banks and brokers were accused of
colluding to siphon off $1.3 billion from the inter-bank
securities market to fuel a boom on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Top broker Harshad Mehta, the main person accused in the
scandal, died in jail during the trial.
 February 1995 - One of Britain's oldest investment banks,
Barings Plc, collapsed after a lone futures trader in
Singapore, Nick Leeson, lost $1.4 billion in derivatives
trading. Leeson was jailed in Singapore. Barings was
subsequently sold to Dutch bank ING (ING.AS: Quote, Profile, Research) for one pound.
 September 1995 - Japan's Daiwa Bank suffered a $1.1 billion
loss from unauthorized bond trading by Toshihide Iguchi, one of
its U.S. executives. He was imprisoned in 1996.
 June 1996 - Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp suffered a
$2.6 billion loss over 10 years from unauthorized copper
trades, primarily by chief copper trader Yasuo Hamanaka.
Sumitomo fired Hamanaka, once dubbed "Mr Five Percent" because
his trading team was believed to control 5 percent of the
world's copper trading. He was later jailed for eight years.
 January 2001 - The former chief financial officer of the
now-defunct Griffin Trading Co, Scott Szach, was charged with
diverting more than $5.56 million from a company bank account
to a brokerage trading account to fund unauthorized trading in
the 18 months before the firm's demise.
 September 2001 - Merrill Lynch (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research) fired two senior
executives for their failure to supervise a currency dealer who
diverted profits on foreign exchange deals to favored clients,
leaving the bank facing a $10 million bill.
 February 2002 - Ireland's largest bank, Allied Irish,
revealed a rogue U.S. trader, John Rusnak, had defrauded its
U.S. subsidiary of up to $750 million. Rusnak was sentenced in
January 2003 to seven and a half years in prison. He admitted
devising a scheme that netted him $850,000 in salary and
bonuses from 1997 to 2001.
 February 2002 - Enron employees tell media outlets,
including Reuters, about a fake trading floor the energy
company set up in 1998 to impress Wall Street analysts. The
company spent about a half million dollars adding big-screen
televisions, computers and telephones to regular office space
to make it look like a nerve center for Enron Energy Services.
EES actually got up and running in the space weeks later.
 March/April 2006 - Hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC and
former head trader Brian Hunter racked up $6.4 billion in
losses from natural gas contracts before the fund folded in
2006. In July 2007, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
sued Amaranth and Hunter, alleging they tried to manipulate
natural gas futures prices.
 January 2008 - French bank Societe Generale alleges that
fraud by a single trader caused a 4.9 billion euro ($7.1
billion) loss. Jerome Kerviel, a junior trader, was jailed in
connection with the case. He was later released on bail but
still faces accusations that he caused SocGen billions of euros
of losses.
 March 31, 2008 - Lehman files suit against Japanese trading
house Marubeni seeking repayment of $352 million lost in an
alleged investment fraud.
 (Writing by Nagesh Narayana; Additional writing by Jijo Jacob;
Editing by John Wallace/Andre Grenon)








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