Fore! Feds hunt for fraud at the golf course

POLITICO ^ | August 30, 2014 | PATRICK TEMPLE-WEST

[maggief]

When you dish out illegal stock tips at the golf course, there are no mulligans.

This summer the Securities and Exchange Commission has brought insider trading cases that center on the relationships between golfing buddies and how their chitchat in the tee box or at the 19th hole turned into lucrative and illegal trading bonanzas.

In July and August, the SEC filed two separate charges involving golf connections, including one targeting seven friends who regularly hit the links at Oakley Country Club just outside of Boston. The SEC charged they made more than $554,000 through illegal trades involving information shared about American Superconductor Corporation.

This follows a similar case from last year where the agency charged an accountant at Big Four firm KPMG with giving stock tips to his golfing partner.

Duffers are on notice — the lush fairways, manicured greens and posh clubhouses of America’s country clubs are no sanctuary from the SEC’s pursuit of fraudsters.

[TADSLOS]

There’s fraud on the fairways every time Obama tees off.

[Bluebird Singing]

. . . and exactly who is obama spending countless hours in chit chat on the course with?

[Bluebird Singing]

ping

[Henchster]

There’s written evidence of fraud on the golf course:

Just subpoena Obumbler’s scorecard.

[Stosh]

“Feds hunt for fraud at the golf course “

Makes sense - that’s where you’re most likely to find him.

[KeyLargo]

"There’s written evidence of fraud on the golf course:"

"Just subpoena Obumbler’s scorecard."

[SamuraiScot]

The SEC charged they made more than $554,000 through illegal trades involving information shared

Scandalous. Almost covers their annual membership fees.

[DH]

You have to remember that Obama wants the same thing as the Clintons wanted: To enter the presidential suite poor as church rats and to leave as poor as church rats.....but to have the good fortune to become millionaires very, very shortly after being as poor as church rats without ever having to lift a hand to earn it.

How’s that for a Cindarella story?

[puppypusher]

Damn this is the same thing that Congress does every day and the SEC allows them to get away with the crime.

This is how members of the Congress,Both Houses can come in with barely any income and the retire as multi-millionaire.

[Bluebird Singing]

While I am sure that is part of it, I suspect his dealing on the golf course involves more than his own personal gain. Any other president would be in Washingon, D.C. in times such as these.

[a fool in paradise]

With Congress legally exempted from insider trading laws, corporations paying obscene salaries to the offspring of elected politicians (sideways payoffs), and board of directors seldom being prosecuted for insider trading, the whole concept of investigations and prosecutions is a farce. Same with FEC law enforcement.

[a fool in paradise]

And yet if you sat in the 19th hole (bar) and listened in on those discussions (which aren’t even always investment “tips” when someone tipsy discloses a new product or merger/acquistiion), YOU would be guilty of insider trading for acting on it.

[a fool in paradise]

The Clintons learned from the Gates/Rockefelle/Kennedy etc families to safeguard their money in a “foundation” trust fund of which they control.

Ted Kennedy was for the estate tax yet he shielded his/family’s own compound from inheritance taxes this way.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Members of the US Congress are exempt from “insider trading” laws, of course, so don’t expect the FBI to be setting up any stings even though they all magically get wealthy while in office.