← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 19473 | Posts: 15 | Started: 2005-08-07
2005-08-07 08:25 | User Profile
Harvard, teacher, and lawyer to pay US $30m By Marcella Bombardieri, August 4, 2005 [URL=http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/08/04/harvard_teacher_and_lawyer_to_pay_us_30m/]Boston Globe[/URL]
Harvard University, a Harvard professor, and a former staff member have agreed to pay the US government about $30 million, a year after a federal judge ruled that economist Andrei Shleifer and lawyer Jonathan Hay conspired to defraud the government by making personal investments in Russia while they were under contract to serve as impartial advisers on Russian economic reform in the mid-1990s.
Although the Department of Justice sued five years ago, seeking $120 million in damages, the government is recouping in the settlement most of the $34 million it paid Harvard for its work in Russia while Shleifer and Hay were making investments.
Neither the university, Shleifer, nor Hay admitted liability as part of the settlement, which Harvard officials said was the largest the university has ever paid.
''The defendants were entrusted with the important task of assisting in the creation of a post-communist Russian open market economy and instead took the opportunity to enrich themselves," US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said in a statement yesterday. ''As evidenced by the hard-fought, five-year litigation of this matter, the US attorney's office is committed to protecting federal funding from misuse and ensuring the adherence to the requirements of government contracts."
Harvard agreed to pay $26.5 million, while Shleifer will pay $2 million. Hay, now a lawyer in London, will pay between $1 million and $2 million, depending upon his earnings over the next 10 years. Shleifer and Hay were top officers of the law reform project at the now-defunct Harvard Institute for International Development, which was under contract with the US Agency for International Development from 1992 to 1997.
The settlement in the civil case prohibits Harvard from paying either Shleifer's or Hay's portion of the costs.
It was announced in June that an agreement was imminent, but the terms had not been worked out. In a separate but related case, FFIA, a Cambridge investment firm partly owned by Nancy Zimmerman, Shleifer's wife, agreed last year to pay $1.5 million to settle the government's charge that the firm had improperly used the development institute's resources.
In separate statements, the university and the two men said essentially that they were settling to avoid the costs of protracted litigation.
Harvard pointed out that Judge Douglas P. Woodlock dismissed the most serious charge against the university, that it had knowingly deceived the government, and found only that it had violated its contract by virtue of Shleifer and Hay's conduct, of which Harvard was not aware.
''We welcome having this matter behind us," Harvard general counsel Robert W. Iuliano said in a statement. ''Over the course of the litigation, the court has affirmed our position that the university engaged in no institutional wrongdoing."
Shleifer said in a statement that ''an individual can fight the unlimited resources of the government for only so long. . . . I strongly believe I would have prevailed in the end, but my lawyers told me my legal fees would exceed the amount that I will be paying the government."
In particular, Martin F. Murphy, Shleifer's lawyer, took issue with Sullivan's statement that Shleifer had taken advantage of his position to enrich himself.
''After eight years of searching, the government still has no evidence to support that contention -- because it is simply not true," Murphy wrote in a statement. ''Professor Shleifer worked in Russia because he wanted to help his native country move from communism to a market economy, and as USAID has repeatedly acknowledged, Professor Shleifer's work was extremely valuable."
Hay's lawyer, Lawrence S. Spiegel, also defended the value of Hay's contributions in Russia. ''While Mr. Hay continues to believe passionately in the work that he and others performed in Russia, his fight with the US government has involved considerable sacrifice," Spiegel said in a statement. ''Mr. Hay has thus decided to move forward with his life and settle this dispute."
The Harvard project was designed to help rebuild the Russian economy. The international development institute's contract had a conflict-of-interest provision prohibiting employees from making investments in Russia. Shleifer has argued that he was a consultant, not an employee.
Among Woodlock's findings was that Shleifer and Zimmerman invested $200,000 in Russian companies and Russian government debt and that Shleifer, Zimmerman, and Hay bought several hundred thousand dollars worth of shares in Russian oil companies, but in the name of another individual.
2005-08-07 18:35 | User Profile
After we fine them, how about we extradite them to Vladimir Putin? I bet he has some friends who would love to have a little chat with these dipsticks.
AE
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Harvard, teacher, and lawyer to pay US $30m By Marcella Bombardieri, August 4, 2005 [url="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/08/04/harvard_teacher_and_lawyer_to_pay_us_30m/"]Boston Globe[/url]
Harvard University, a Harvard professor, and a former staff member have agreed to pay the US government about $30 million, a year after a federal judge ruled that economist Andrei Shleifer and lawyer Jonathan Hay conspired to defraud the government by making personal investments in Russia while they were under contract to serve as impartial advisers on Russian economic reform in the mid-1990s.
SNIOP
Among Woodlock's findings was that Shleifer and Zimmerman invested $200,000 in Russian companies and Russian government debt and that Shleifer, Zimmerman, and Hay bought several hundred thousand dollars worth of shares in Russian oil companies, but in the name of another individual.[/QUOTE]
2005-08-08 16:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Harvard, teacher, and lawyer to pay US $30m By Marcella Bombardieri, August 4, 2005 [URL=http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/08/04/harvard_teacher_and_lawyer_to_pay_us_30m/]Boston Globe[/URL]
Harvard University, a Harvard professor, and a former staff member have agreed to pay the US government about $30 million, a year after a federal judge ruled that economist Andrei Shleifer and lawyer Jonathan Hay conspired to defraud the government by making personal investments in Russia while they were under contract to serve as impartial advisers on Russian economic reform in the mid-1990s.
Although the Department of Justice sued five years ago, seeking $120 million in damages, the government is recouping in the settlement most of the $34 million it paid Harvard for its work in Russia while Shleifer and Hay were making investments.[/QUOTE]Has anybody read or know of a good history of the workings in the privatization of Russian oil assets and other valued minerals? All I have read is that the situation was clouded in "murkiness". I have read where Bill Safire has accused the Russian government of anti-Semitism, but I am sure Putin and friends had good reason to be concerned - notwithstanding the presence of Harvard faculty and good honest Jews.
2005-08-08 19:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]Has anybody read or know of a good history of the workings in the privatization of Russian oil assets and other valued minerals? All I have read is that the situation was clouded in "murkiness". I have read where Bill Safire has accused the Russian government of anti-Semitism, but I am sure Putin and friends had good reason to be concerned - notwithstanding the presence of Harvard faculty and good honest Jews.[/QUOTE]
It happened mostly in 1995-1996 in a scam called "Loans for Shares."
Team Yehuda would "loan" the Russian government money in exchange for the right to conduct an auction of one of Russia's economic crown jewels. They then rigged the auction, usually disqualifying everybody but themselves and a mysterious offshore company that was obviously a controlled shell. They'd then get the crown jewel for the amount of the loan, usually a small fraction of its actual worth.
It was openly corrupt, not that our press made much of a stink about it back then. The Russians were pissed off, but they didn't count.
It was discussed at the time in the Russian press, you could also find articles from back then on eXile and even Moscow Times.
2005-08-09 17:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]It happened mostly in 1995-1996 in a scam called "Loans for Shares."
Team Yehuda would "loan" the Russian government money in exchange for the right to conduct an auction of one of Russia's economic crown jewels. They then rigged the auction, usually disqualifying everybody but themselves and a mysterious offshore company that was obviously a controlled shell. They'd then get the crown jewel for the amount of the loan, usually a small fraction of its actual worth.
It was openly corrupt, not that our press made much of a stink about it back then. The Russians were pissed off, but they didn't count.
It was discussed at the time in the Russian press, you could also find articles from back then on eXile and even Moscow Times.[/QUOTE]Walter, Has this been written? This was and is an extremely important fact. I would think it would even persuade some of the most pig-headed that Jews were out to screw the Russians.
2005-08-09 17:51 | User Profile
When one considers who runs the US govt., it is amazing they didn't get an extra 30 mil. in "consulting fees" for screwing the Russians the way they did.
2005-08-09 19:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]Walter, Has this been written? This was and is an extremely important fact. I would think it would even persuade some of the most pig-headed that Jews were out to screw the Russians.[/QUOTE]
Matt Taibbi of the eXile probably did the best job of chronicling this thing as it happened. I was an avid reader.
[URL=http://www.exile.ru/2002-June-26/press_review.html]Here's an excerpt [/URL] from the eXile archives, I suggest that you do your own search of the archive with "loans-for-shares."
[QUOTE]Furthermore, the oligarchs really became a ruling class only after the "loans for shares" auctions in late 1995, a series of privatizations that underscored the incestuous relationship between the state and the new tycoons. The state "lent" huge stakes in giant companies (in particular oil companies) in return for cash. Implemented and organized by Minister Chubais, the auctions ended up being one of the great shams of all time, as in many cases the bidders themselves were allowed to organize the tenders and even to exclude competitors. In some cases, the state actually managed to lend the bidders the money to make the bids through a series of backdoor maneuvers.
Hailed at the time as the death knell of the state-controlled economy and a great advance of the privatization effort, the auctions were actually a huge quid pro quo in which bankers were handed billion-dollar companies for a fraction of their market price (a 78 percent stake in Yukos, the second-largest oil company in Russia, valued at least at $2 billion, was sold for just $309.1 million to Khodorkovsky's Menatep Bank) in exchange for support of Yeltsin in the upcoming 1996 election. Many Russians today consider loans for shares one of the biggest thefts in the history of mankind. Hoffman, incidentally, didn't bother to cover loans for shares as a reporter, either.[/QUOTE]
2005-08-09 19:23 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]When one considers who runs the US govt., it is amazing they didn't get an extra 30 mil. in "consulting fees" for screwing the Russians the way they did.[/QUOTE]
During the financial meltdown of August 1998 the US lent the Russian Central Bank one billion dollars that just disappeared.
Then everybody forgot about it.
2005-08-09 19:42 | User Profile
Walter,
I'd bet a dollar to a donut that the billion ultimately found its way into the coffers of our international bankers.
2005-08-09 19:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]Walter, Has this been written? This was and is an extremely important fact. I would think it would even persuade some of the most pig-headed that Jews were out to screw the Russians.[/QUOTE]The Nation Magazine did a big expose of these Harvard jews called the "Harvard Boys Do Russia" back around 98-99.
The Nation named names, including that one Harvard kike, whose name escapes me now, who has been in the news a recently for warm and fuzzy development issues. He had his old lady stealing from the Russians too---in kike fashion.
The Nation usually doesn't archive their stories about jew mischief...but I will check anyway.
Here it is, and the jewboys name is Jeffery Sachs... [url="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19980601&s=wedel"]http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19980601&s=wedel[/url]
2005-08-09 19:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]Walter,
I'd bet a dollar to a donut that the billion ultimately found its way into the coffers of our international bankers.[/QUOTE] Sert, You're so cynical. I'm sure somebody just misplaced it. Honest mistake. :rolleyes:
2005-08-09 20:13 | User Profile
Yeah, stop being so cynical. I myself found $43,000 in nickels under my couch cushions the other day, so I can totally see how a billion or two might accidentally diappear. :caiphas:
2005-08-09 20:59 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Neither the university, Shleifer, nor Hay admitted liability as part of the settlement, which Harvard officials said was the largest the university has ever paid.[/QUOTE]
Remember this sentence the next time some penny-ante Martha Stewart gets trundled out for the public to vent their Two Minutes Hate on.
[B]No[/B] admission of culpability. [B]No[/B] restitution beyond tip money. Certainly no [I]jail time [/I] whatsoever.
And the worst crime against humanity you can possibly be guilty of is STILL "anti-Semitism".
2005-08-09 21:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Neither the university, Shleifer, nor Hay admitted liability as part of the settlement, which Harvard officials said was the largest the university has ever paid.[/QUOTE]
Remember this sentence the next time some penny-ante Martha Stewart gets trundled out for the public to vent their Two Minutes Hate on.
[B]No[/B] admission of culpability. [B]No[/B] restitution beyond tip money. Certainly no [I]jail time [/I] whatsoever.
And the worst crime against humanity you can possibly be guilty of is STILL "anti-Semitism".
[QUOTE]If you believe that capitalism is about destroying a country's industry, handing over its wealth to a dozen or so people who will be inclined to move it instantly to places like Switzerland and Nauru Island, and about humiliating the general population so completely that they are powerless to do anything but consume foreign products and long for the "good old days" of totalitarianism (polls still consistently show that 70 percent of the population preferred life under Brezhnev to that of today's Russia), then you have to judge the Russian experiment a success.[/QUOTE]
One down - one to go...?
2005-08-09 21:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]Sert, You're so cynical. I'm sure somebody just misplaced it. Honest mistake. :rolleyes:[/QUOTE] Q,
Yes, it's kind of like that 9 bil the C.P.A. misplaced in Iraq. I wonder when O'Reilly will find the time to bitch about this as he has the "oil for food program" scandal.