Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Peter Siverer JP Morgan Whistleblower

"When Wall Street Watchdogs Hunt Whistle-Blowers
By 
August 19, 2012 6:33 PM EDT
You’ve probably never heard of Peter Sivere, a former compliance officer at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
Yet his distressing story shows -- on a personal level -- that for all the tough talk about better enforcement of financial wrongdoing, just how tightly government regulators are aligned with the big Wall Street banks they are supposed to keep an eye on.
In January 1998, Sivere joined JPMorgan as a surveillance analyst in the compliance department of the fixed-income group. In December 1999, Sivere was promoted to vice president and then again to be the “team leader” of electronic-communications compliance. On Sept. 26, 2003, Sivere received his annual review and a rating of 9.63, or “great,” according to the bank’s evaluation scale.
“I consider Peter to be a brilliant surveillance analyst,” one of his colleagues wrote. “Peter is highly motivated and diligent individual with an exceptional work ethic.”
Despite that review and the promotions, things had actually started going off the rails, careerwise, for Sivere earlier that month, when then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed a complaint against Canary Capital Partners LLC, a (now defunct) New Jersey hedge fund and a big client of JPMorgan. The suit held that Canary had engaged in “late trading” of mutual funds -- that is, it was allowed to buy shares of mutual funds at the day’s final price even though the market had closed. Canary’s late trading was akin to getting tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal today.
The next day, the Securities and Exchange Commission started its own investigation into late trading and asked for documents and e-mails from JPMorgan. Sivere was put in charge of a group of four internal lawyers searching for documents to provide the SEC. Several weeks later, the bank’s litigation department removed the four lawyers from the project, allegedly because they failed to find all the “responsive e-mails” called for in the SEC’s subpoena.
Sivere contests that claim. “I observed that the attorneys had discovered a number of E-mails” that JPMorgan’s litigation department “had not identified,” he wrote in an affidavit. A few weeks later, a new set of four lawyers was hired -- also to be supervised by Sivere -- to resume the document production for the SEC’s investigation.
According to court documents and an investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, on Nov. 18 one of the new lawyers, Sarah Kelleher, found an e-mail that showed that JPMorgan had provided a $105 million line of credit to Canary Capital that Canary used to facilitate its late trading in mutual funds. Sivere forwarded the e-mail to three of the leaders of the compliance department. The next day Sivere and the second set of lawyers were removed from their roles finding documents to send to the SEC.
They were replaced by a team from the law firm Davis, Polk & Wardwell. This was odd, as Davis, Polk had an apparent conflict related to its providing legal advice in setting up financing vehicles to trade mutual funds for JPMorgan clients.
Sivere’s wife gave birth to the couple’s first child on Jan. 21, 2004, and because of complications with her health, Sivere took medical leave between March 2 and April 21. On April 23, Sivere had a conversation with his supervisors who told him they were “not happy” with his performance.

Throughout May 2004, as news accounts started appearing about the late-trading scandal involving Canary, Sivere became increasingly concerned that JPMorgan was not cooperating fully with the SEC’s investigation. He told his immediate boss about his growing concerns. Sivere contacted the firm’s compliance department to find out what e- mails had been turned over to the SEC, but did not receive a reply.
On June 1, Sivere was given the choice of either leaving the firm immediately as a result of his “insubordination” or continuing to work at the firm under a “final written warning” agreement. On June 4, Sivere told a compliance officer at the bank that he thought he was being retaliated against for questioning the firm’s cooperation with the SEC investigation. JPMorgan opened an internal investigation, and placed Sivere on paid leave, with no access to his computer, pending its outcome.
On June 13, Sivere contacted an SEC lawyer, George Demos, by e-mail, seeking to become a whistle-blower. Sivere asked if he would be able to collect whatever “bounty” the law permitted for trying to do the right thing. (He used the indelicate e-mail address Bountyman04@aol.com.)
Demos informed Sivere that no bounty was available; yet Sivere decided to turn over e-mails he had come across in his investigation to the SEC anyway. Sivere believed the e-mails showed JPMorgan had violated securities laws. (Sivere also later filed a complaint with OSHA, claiming that he had been discriminated against for turning over e-mails to the SEC.)
Not surprisingly, Sivere was demoted from team leader when he returned to work on July 19. But he continued to monitor e- mails about the SEC’s investigation into late trading. In early October, he accessed more e-mails from JPMorgan executives relating to the firm’s relationship with Canary, including one dated Oct. 4, from Jamie Dimon, now the chairman and chief executive officer. Dimon’s missive asked Joan Guggenheimer, co- general counsel, to tell him the “exact timing” of the firm’s involvement with Canary and the loans that were made to help Canary finance its late trading of mutual funds.
On Oct. 7, JPMorgan fired Sivere for inappropriate use of the firm’s e-mail. OSHA eventually determined that JPMorgan had retaliated against Sivere and ordered him reinstated. Instead, Sivere and the bank settled for $350,000. After an arbitration hearing, JPMorgan was ordered to change the description of Sivere’s firing on his U-5 form from “mutual consent” and “for accessing e-mails without authorization” to “a disagreement regarding the scope of his authority.” Sivere struggled to find work, but is now with Barclays Plc in New York. “Today, I believe my past experience and desire to do the right thing should be an asset,” he told me recently. “Wall Street executives talk about ’tone at the top’ and ’culture’ but, unfortunately, the people who monitor those things are at risk more than most people realize.” (As I have said before, I too worked for JPMorgan and unsuccessfully took it to arbitration over my firing in 2004.)
That would be the end of the horrific story, except that as part of the OSHA investigation, Sivere discovered in May 2005 that Demos, the SEC lawyer, had informed JPMorgan’s lawyers that Sivere had asked the SEC for a bounty as a whistle-blower. Demos also gave permission and “actually encouraged” that this bit of information be used in the lawsuit between JPMorgan and Sivere.
This was, of course, blatantly in violation of SEC rules. The SEC’s inspector general investigated the matter and corroborated that Demos had ratted out Sivere, but the agency took no disciplinary action against Demos.
As usual, truth is stranger than fiction. The epilogue to the story is that early this year, Demos announced he was seeking the Republican nomination for a seat in the U.S. House from an eastern Long Island district. His slogan: “Fighting for Freedom.” In May, Demos gave up his fight, claiming that he wanted to spend more time with his fiancee.
With a little luck, the SEC will adopt Demos’s unused slogan in what little effort it makes these days to crack down on Wall Street wrongdoing.
(William D. Cohan , the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World,” is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was formerly an investment banker at Lazard Freres, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this article: William D. Cohan at wdcohan@yahoo.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this article: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net."

Source

Saturday, March 3, 2012

The SEC Knows of Massive Fraud and Insiders Like George Demos was hide it for folks like JP Morgan. The iViewit Technology case will be next, 13 Trillion Dollars, the SEC has Known for a Decade.

"The SEC Kicked the Can & the NY Court System Hid the Records
If you ever wonder how Madoff pulled off his scheme without the SEC picking it up, all you have to do is look at how the SEC operates. Hopefully, the SEC is working on changing their culture, but they have a long way to go, and our court system isn’t much better.
The following story gives a glimpse at the stealth under which the SEC and the courts operate, to say nothing of their loose ethics. Someone has to be held accountable, but it’s the government, so I guess no one will be.
The story begins with a sketchy relationship between D.C. and the SEC coming to light and, smack in the middle of it, is an enforcement lawyer who wants to run for Congress. The enforcement lawyer is investigating a corporation, interviews a whistle blower during the course of the investigation, and then provides the corporation he’s investigating with the whistleblower’s name.
As if that’s enough, the enforcement lawyer then posts the whistleblower’s name on his campaign site, further invading the whistleblower’s privacy and future job prospects.
The enforcement lawyer is not a bit sorry and there has been no justice in this case.
You can’t make this stuff up.
READ THE REST OF THIS EXPLOSIVE STORY HERE:

Soure

Thursday, February 2, 2012

"FDA officials could be breaking the law by retaliating against the whistleblowers," "Who authorized the monitoring of the whistleblowers"

I am not sure what to think of Grassley's seeming attack on Lightsquared and what looks like siding with good ol boys Verizon, AT&;T, Clearwire, Deere and Company.. thing is, this Calling out the FDA, calling out a government agency for retaliation against Whistleblower's is indeed something to be respected, commended.

I often ask the same question, as in the SEC, the Department of Justice, the FBI, Corrupt Montana Courts, Corruption in the Supreme Court, Corrupt Judges and other Government Agencies, indeed "Who authorized the monitoring of the whistleblowers" and who gives the orders to retaliate against a whistle blower?

"Grassley probes FDA over whistleblower retaliation
By Julian Pecquet - 02/02/12 12:31 PM ET

The senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee is demanding answers from the Obama administration over the Food and Drug Administration's retaliation against whistleblowers who contacted his office.

Six current and former FDA employees sued the government last week alleging that the agency pried into their personal email accounts and retaliated against them after they shared with Congress concerns about the approval process for medical devices.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a longtime champion of whistleblower rights, on Thursday released a letter that warns that FDA officials could be breaking the law by retaliating against the whistleblowers, at least one of whom was fired.

"It is troubling to me to see your Agency actively pursue the dismissal of an employee … not because they violated procedure and leaked genuinely confidential classified information, but simply because you 'cannot trust him'," Grassley wrote to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. "During your confirmation hearing in the Senate in 2009 you stated, 'I think whistleblowers serve a very important role in government in surfacing critical issues and concerns and making sure they're addressed. As leader of the FDA, I would very much want to create a culture that enables all voices to be heard'"

Source and Full Article
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medical-devices-and-prescription-drug-policy-/208287-grassley-probes-fda-over-whistleblower-retaliation

As with the Peter Sivere Story, and so many others I hear of where whistleblowers are retaliated against by governement agencies, this is a major statement and a win for whistleblowers everywhere.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

SEC gets Tips and Rats Out Whistleblower. Peter Siver - George Demos, still Ignored by SEC.

"As the SEC Finalizes Its Whistleblower Rules, One Whistleblower's Fight for Justice Continues

By MICHAEL SMALLBERG and ADAM ZAGORIN

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently approved final rules to implement a vastly improved whistleblower award program mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.

Under this legislation and the final rules, the SEC generally cannot "disclose information that could reasonably be expected to reveal the identity of a whistleblower."

If the program has any chance of succeeding, whistleblowers must have confidence in the SEC’s ability to protect their confidentiality. Just ask Peter Sivere.

Last year, we wrote in Politics Daily about Sivere’s experience when he came to the SEC in 2004 with what he described as "confidential" evidence of wrongdoing by his employer, JPMorgan Chase. He received a response from George Demos, an enforcement attorney in the SEC’s New York office, who assured Sivere that the SEC’s investigation would be kept confidential.

However, Demos turned around and disclosed non-public information about Sivere to JPMorgan’s counsel, who then used the information to attack Sivere’s whistleblower credentials, according to a 2009 investigative report issued by the SEC Office of Inspector General (OIG). (Although Demos’s name was redacted in the report, documents obtained by POGO confirmed that he was the attorney cited in the OIG’s investigation.)

The OIG recommended that the SEC consider taking disciplinary action against Demos, but no action was taken, as confirmed by a recent letter sent from SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) that included an update on the SEC’s response to OIG disciplinary recommendations. In fact, Demos left the SEC and announced that he was running for Congress, touting his service as an SEC enforcement attorney.

The SEC may have let Demos off the hook, but Sivere has pressed on in his fight to hold Demos accountable. He recently filed a complaint before a New York state judicial body alleging that Demos violated the rules of professional conduct for New York attorneys. In May 2010, the Grievance Committee for the State of New York’s Tenth Judicial District told Sivere it had dismissed the complaint against Demos, but it was unclear whether a credible investigation had ever been conducted.

This morning, Larry Doyle at Sense on Cents posted a letter from the Clerk of the New York State Supreme Court stating that the investigation has now been re-opened and transferred to a different department. The letter, dated June 1, 2011, states that "[t]he investigation was initially disposed of by the Grievance Committee for the Tenth Judicial District, but upon further review, it was decided that the matter should be re-opened but transferred to another department....in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety."

We hope that a thorough investigation will finally be conducted into the allegations that Demos disclosed non-public information about Sivere. In the meantime, as the SEC tries to convince more whistleblowers to come forward with information on securities law violations, it is imperative that SEC officials hold employees accountable for violating the rules of the whistleblower award program. As Sivere remarked in a public comment on the SEC’s initial proposed rules, "those entrusted with investigating tips of potential fraud from whistle blowers must have the fortitude to do the right thing, not the easy thing."

Michael Smallberg is a POGO Investigator. Adam Zagorin is POGO's Journalist in Residence. "

Peter Sivere Post Source
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/06/as-the-sec-finalizes-its-whistleblower-rules-one-whistleblowers-fight-for-justice-continues.html

Sunday, March 20, 2011

SEC needs Investigators with Integrity

Subject: File No. DF Title IX - Whistleblower
From: Peter Sivere

November 5, 2010
The below remarks were made by Jamie Dimon at Syracuse University's 156th Commencement on May 16, 2010. I strongly believe with his remarks.
Throughout my life and throughout this crisis, I've seen many people embarrass themselves by failing to stand up, being mealy-mouthed and acting like lemmings by simply going along with the pack, he told the graduates. Along the way, youre going to face a lot of pressure -- pressure to go along, to get along, to toe the line. Have the fortitude to do the right thing, not the easy thing. Dont be somebodys lap dog or sycophant.
In my experience (see attached article, a must read for whichever position you take up), it is not so much whether the reporting is done internally or externally. What matters is the character and the integrity of the person accepting the information from the whistle blower.
Simply put, those entrusted with investigating tips of potential fraud from whistle blowers must have the fortitude to do the right thing, not the easy thing. Dont be somebodys lap dog or sycophant.

The tone at the top of any organization is useless if those at the top fail to enforce the mandate to their subordinates.
Thank You,
Peter Sivere

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Paul Geanelli, Tenth Judicial District Grievance Committee "Considered" Complaint on George Demos? ya Right !


May 11th 2010 from Paul Geanelli, Tenth Judicial District Grievance Committee to George Demos about the supposed consideration and investigation that the Tenth Judicial District Grievance Committee allegedly performed.

"The Grievance Committee for the Tenth Judicial District Considered the Complaint Filed against you by Peter Z. Sivere"

"After Consideration, the Committee Determined that there was no Breach of the Code of Professional Responsibility / Rules

BULL, there was Fraud, Collusion and Cover ups and the Corrupt Tenth Judicial District Grievance Committee protects the Attorneys who Commit massive FRAUD and at the same time "Suspend" attorneys that Tell the Truth.

Tenth Judicial District Grievance Committee, New York Defends Criminal Attorneys to let them commit more crimes, meanwhile they suspend Honest - Truthful Attorneys such as Ruth Pollack. I Say, the Real Agenda of the New York Tenth Judicial District Grievance Committee is to protect the Wall of Corruption in New York, to Protect Politicians and Big Money and the TRUTH nor the Law is a Factor in the Decisions made by the Tenth Judicial District Grievance Committee.



posted here by
Crystal L. Cox
Investigative Blogger
Crystal@CrystalCox.com


George Demos, Long Island Congressional Candidate Protected by SEC, NY Grievance Committee, DOJ - SEC Whistleblower Program a Fraud !



George Demos Claimed he was "Fighting for Freedom" thing is George Demos was a Corrupt SEC Investigator Fighting to Protect Fraud, Corruption and Collusion for Big Corporation - in this Case JP Morgan.

Why Did the Long Island Media Fail to Expose the report to the SEC Inspector General about the blatant mis-conduct and illegal activity of George Demos.

Doesn't the SEC have a responsibility not only to all of America in this massive cover up FOR JP Morgan but also an Obligation to tell the Truth about George Demos during a time of a Public Election? Why and a better question, WHO .. covered up this information in ALL Media.. in hopes that George Demos would Win his Long Island Election?

Got a Tip?
Crystal L. Cox
Investigative Blogger
Crystal@CrystalCox.com

How many more Big Corporations has the SEC Investigators, New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Rita Adler, Leslie B. Anderson of the New York Grievance Committee - Tenth Judicial District, the New York Bar, the Second Department, Protected ? And to what lengths have the gone?

How Many Good Lawyers, Whistle Blowers take the Fall as these folks cover up for, protect the Criminals?


Note: many of the SEC Investigators get BIG paying jobs after they leave the SEC and Protect the Multi-Billion Dollar Corporations...