Pankit ja eliitti - joka päivä niin kiireisiä

[Pasi Fist]

https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000006322305.html

Ylen ja kahden ruotsalaismedian selvitys: SEB-pankin toiminnassa hälyttäviä merkkejä rahanpesusta, pankki myöntää miljardien siirrot epäilyttävistä lähteistä

SEB-pankki myöntää, että sen Viron-konttorin läpi on virrannut yli 26 miljardeja euroa rahaa epäilyttävistä lähteistä.

Ruotsin yleisradioyhtiö SVT:n, uutistoimisto TT:n ja Ylen MOT:n tekemän yhteisselvityksen mukaan myös ruotsalaiseen SEB-pankkiin liittyy rahanpesuepäilyjä.

Ylen mukaan SEB-pankin asiakkaina on 194 pöytälaatikkoyhtiöitä. Osaan näistä liittyy epäilyttävää toimintaa ja rahanpesun perinteisiä tunnusmerkkejä. Osa pöytälaatikkoyhtiöistä kytkeytyy Ylen mukaan myös suoraan talousrikoksiin.

Brittiläinen rahanpesun asiantuntija Graham Barrow kuvailee uutistoimisto TT:lle, että pankin ”hälytyskellojen olisi pitänyt soida”. Hänen mukaansa SEB vaikuttaa epäonnistuneen rahanpesun ehkäisyssä.

Selvityksen mukaan valtaosa pankin epäilyttävistä asiakkaista on pitänyt tiliään SEB-pankin Viron-konttorissa.

Tiistaina SEB julkaisi Viron-konttoriaan koskevan tiedotteen.

Tiedotteen mukaan vuosina 2005-2018 Viron-konttorin kautta on tehty tilisiirtoja arvelluttavista lähteistä 25,8 miljardilla eurolla. Pankin mukaan summa koskee Viron ulkopuolelle rekisteröityjen asiakkaiden tekemiä tilisiirtoja, jotka eivät tänä päivänä täyttäisi pankin läpinäkyvyyttä koskevia ehtoja.

Aikaisemmin SEB-pankki on sanonut, ettei se ole havainnut varoitusmerkkejä mahdollisesta rahanpesusta.

Ruotsalaismediat ja MOT tutkivat pankin asiakkaiden tilisiirtoja hyödyntämällä vuodettua tietoaineistoa.

SEB:iä koskevat epäilyt ovat osa pohjoismaalaisia pankkeja koskettanutta rahanpesuepäilyjen sarjaa. Ensimmäiset Danske Bankia koskevat epäilyt tulivat julki vuonna 2017.

Viime vuonna Danske Bankin edellinen pääjohtaja Thomas Borgen erosi rahanpesuskandaalin seurauksena. Pankin Viron-yksikkö määrättiin helmikuussa lopetettavaksi, sillä Viron finanssivalvoja piti yksikköön kohdistuvia rahanpesuepäilyjä niin törkeinä. Pankki epäillään

Myös Nordean sekä Swedbankin Baltian-toimintaan liittyy rahanpesuepäilyjä.

Rahanpesulla tarkoitetaan rikollisen rahan alkuperän hävittämistä. Se voi yksinkertaisimmillaan olla rahan välittämistä maksuina eteenpäin useiden välikäsien kautta. Tämän estämiseksi pankeilla on velvollisuus tuntea asiakkaansa.

SEB-pankin mukaan sitä ei ole käytetty ”systemaattiseen rahanpesuun”, Yle kertoo.

Pankin yritysvastuujohtaja ei näe tarvetta ulkopuolisen tahon tekemälle selvitykselle. SEB-pankki on Ylen mukaan kuitenkin myöntänyt, että sen olisi pitänyt tunnistaa riskiasiakkaansa paremmin.

[Taito Muhkunen]

Jännä ku siellä on varmaan kuitenkin asiantuntijat hoitamassa noita isompia tilejä että ne ei sitten jostain syystä ilmoita että nyt näyttää vähän hoopolta

[Pasi Fist]

Jännä ku siellä on varmaan kuitenkin asiantuntijat hoitamassa noita isompia tilejä että ne ei sitten jostain syystä ilmoita että nyt näyttää vähän hoopolta

Markkinat on eettisiä kato.

[Taito Muhkunen]

Jännä ku siellä on varmaan kuitenkin asiantuntijat hoitamassa noita isompia tilejä että ne ei sitten jostain syystä ilmoita että nyt näyttää vähän hoopolta

Markkinat on eettisiä kato.

Hetkinen, nyt en ihan ymmärtänyt.

[Sasse netä]

Jännä ku siellä on varmaan kuitenkin asiantuntijat hoitamassa noita isompia tilejä että ne ei sitten jostain syystä ilmoita että nyt näyttää vähän hoopolta

Jos on ihan varma että ei todellakaan jäädä kiinni niin mikäs siinä hoitaa maksua vastaan tuollaista rahaliikennettä

[Lusku]

https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000006322305.html

SEB-pankki myöntää, että sen Viron-konttorin läpi on virrannut yli 26 miljardeja euroa rahaa epäilyttävistä lähteistä.

Ruotsin yleisradioyhtiö SVT:n, uutistoimisto TT:n ja Ylen MOT:n tekemän yhteisselvityksen mukaan myös ruotsalaiseen SEB-pankkiin liittyy rahanpesuepäilyjä.

Ylen mukaan SEB-pankin asiakkaina on 194 pöytälaatikkoyhtiöitä. Osaan näistä liittyy epäilyttävää toimintaa ja rahanpesun perinteisiä tunnusmerkkejä. Osa pöytälaatikkoyhtiöistä kytkeytyy Ylen mukaan myös suoraan talousrikoksiin.
--
SEB-pankin mukaan sitä ei ole käytetty ”systemaattiseen rahanpesuun”, Yle kertoo.

[Pasi Fist]

Markkinat ovat taas olleet eettisiä.

https://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000006378097.html

Valtava dokumenttivuoto paljastaa, että Afrikan rikkain nainen on junaillut itselleen korruption avulla lähes kahden miljardin omaisuuden

”Luanda leaksiksi” kutsutussa tietovuodossa journalisteille oli luovutettu BBC:n mukaan yli 700 000 asiasta kertovaa dokumenttia. Niitä ovat tutkineet yli 37 eri mediasta olevat toimittajat.


Isabel dos Santos on kiistänyt häntä kohtaan esitetyt syytteet.

Kymmenille medioille vuodetut dokumentit kertovat, että Angolan entisen presidentin José Eduardo dos Santosin tytär on koostanut valtavan omaisuutensa muun muassa käyttämällä asemaansa hyväksi, kertoivat useat kansainväliset mediat sunnuntaina. Asiasta kertovat muun muassa brittilehti The Guardian sekä Britannian yleisradioyhtiö BBC.

The Guardianin mukaan Afrikan rikkaimpana naisena ja ”Angolan prinsessana” tunnettu Isabel dos Santos, 46, on pitkään kiistänyt, että hänen yli kahden miljardin omaisuutensa olisi seurausta nepotismista tai korruptiosta. Tutkivien journalistien yhteenliittymälle (ICIJ) vuodettu aineisto kuitenkin kertoo, että hän on onnistunut hyödyntämään suhteitaan muun muassa ostamalla maata ”epäilyttävien sopimusten” avulla, kertoo BBC.

Talouslehti Forbes on arvioinut hänen omaisuutensa arvoksi 2,1 miljardia dollaria, mikä vastaa lähes 1,9:ää miljardia euroa.

Dos Santos on kiistänyt syytteet ja kutsunut niitä Angolan hallinnon suorittamaksi noitavainoksi, kertoo BBC.

”Luanda leaksiksi” kutsutussa tietovuodossa journalisteille oli luovutettu BBC:n mukaan yli 700 000 asiasta kertovaa dokumenttia. Niitä ovat tutkineet median mukaan yli 37 eri mediasta olevat toimittajat.

BBC:n mukaan dos Santosia kohtaan esitetyt syytteet liittyvät muun muassa maakauppoihin, öljyyn, timanttibisnekseen sekä teleliikenteeseen liittyviin epämääräisiin toimiin. Häntä tutkitaan jo muun muassa korruptiosta, ja hänen varojaan on myös jäädytetty.

Dos Santosin epämääräisten liiketoimien on kerrottu tulleen hänen maalleen kalliiksi. Osa vuodetuista dokumenteista liittyy angolalaiseen valtion öljy-yhtiöön Sonangoliin, jonka johdossa Dos Santos oli eräässä vaiheessa, BBC:n mukaan hänen isänsä aseman ansiosta. BBC:n mukaan Dos Santos on rikastunut pitkälti portugalilaisen energiayhtiön Galpin omistamisen avulla, mihin hän oli käyttänyt hyödykseen Sonangolia.

Samantyylisiä toimia on liitetty myös esimerkiksi timanttibisnekseen. Dos Santosin mies, kongolainen liikemies Sindika Dokolo, hyödynsi sveitsiläisen luksuskoruyhtiö De Grisogonon hankkimisessa Angolan valtionyhtiö Sodiamin varoja miljoonien eurojen verran.

Epämääräisiä junailuja liittyy BBC:n mukaan myös muun muassa maakauppoihin sekä teleyhtiöihin.

Angolan televerkkojen rakentamisen tapauksessa hänellä on ollut Ruotsin yleisradioyhtiön SVT:n mukaan kytköksiä myös ruotsalaiseen telekommunikaatiojärjestelmiä valmistavaan Ericssoniin. Ericsson ei kommentoinut asiaa SVT:lle.

Presidentti José Eduardo dos Santos hallitsi Angolaa tiukalla otteella 38 vuoden ajan, kunnes jäi syrjään vuonna 2017. Britanniassa opiskellut ja sieltä kiinteistöjä omistava Isabel dos Santos on hänen vanhin tyttärensä.

Dos Santos on ollut julkisuudessa lukuisia kertoja myös aiemmin liittyen epämääräisiin bisneksiinsä. Hän on kertonut aiemmin tammikuussa BBC:n mukaan aikeestaan mahdollisesti hakea Angolan presidentiksi.

Dos Santosin omaisuus koostuu Guardianin mukaan muun muassa lukuisista luksuskiinteistöistä eri maissa, yli 30 miljoonalla eurolla ostetusta luksusjahdista sekä omistuksista esimerkiksi timantti-, alkoholi- ja telebisneksessä.

Eteläisessä Afrikassa sijaitseva Angola on maanosan toisiksi suurin öljyntuottaja. Noin 29 miljoonan asukkaan valtio kärsi BBC:n mukaan lähes 30 vuoden mittaisesta sisällissodasta, joka päättyi vuonna 2002. 30 prosenttia maan asukkaista elää köyhyydessä.

[Pasi Fist]

^---Samasta keissistä toinen artikkeli:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... aks-angola

[Lusku]

Euroopassa on aloitettu oikeustoimet, syynä
"Maailman suurin veropetos." Osallisina mm Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, myös europankkeja. Vedätetty summa 60 miljardia dollaria.

osa 1
Robbery of the Century: Europe Wants Justice After $60 Billion Swindled in ‘Biggest Tax Heist Ever’

Spoiler:

The regional court in Bonn where two British bankers, Martin Shields and Paul Mora, are on trial. (Photo: Reuters)

The regional court in Bonn where two British bankers, Martin Shields and Paul Mora, are on trial. (Photo: Reuters)
Germany was hardest hit, with an estimated $30 billion in losses, followed by France, taken for about $17 billion. Smaller sums were drained away from Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Finland, Poland and others.

New York Times
Last Updated: January 25, 2020, 11:07 PM IST

Share this:
They made quite a team. One was an Oxford-educated wunderkind who handled the complicated math behind the transactions. The other was a beefy, 6-foot-2 New Zealander with an apparent fondness for Hawaiian shirts, who brought in clients and money.

Martin Shields and Paul Mora met in 2004, at the London office of Merrill Lynch. Shields was always the pupil, a little in awe of the older man’s ability to bluff and charm. Once, after Mora fended off suspicious auditors at a bank where the two worked, Shields sent an admiring email.

“Remind me never to play poker with you,” he said, according to an internal report later commissioned by the bank.

Today, the men stand accused of participating in what Le Monde has called “the robbery of the century,” and what one academic declared “the biggest tax theft in the history of Europe.”

From 2006 to 2011, these two and hundreds of bankers, lawyers and investors made off with a staggering $60 billion, all of it siphoned from the state coffers of European countries. As one participant would later put it, taxpayer funds were an irresistible mark for a simple reason: They never ran out.

The scheme was built around “cum-ex trading” (from the Latin for “with-without”): a monetary manoeuvre to avoid double taxation of investment profits that plays out like high finance’s answer to a David Copperfield stage illusion. Through careful timing, and the coordination of a dozen different transactions, cum-ex trades produced two refunds for dividend tax paid on one basket of stocks.

One basket of stocks. Abracadabra. Two refunds.

The process was repeated over and over, as word of cum-ex spread like a quiet contagion. Germany was hardest hit, with an estimated $30 billion in losses, followed by France, taken for about $17 billion. Smaller sums were drained away from Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Finland, Poland and others.

Outrage in these countries has focused on the City of London, Britain’s answer to Wall Street. Less scrutinized has been the role played by Americans, both individual investors and branches of U.S. investment banks in London, including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Exactly how the scheme operated is a central question in the first cum-ex prosecution, which began in September in Bonn, Germany.

In a trial expected to last until February, German prosecutors intend to make an example of Shields, 41, and a former colleague. (Mora, 52, was indicted in December and will be tried separately in the coming months.) The men in the Bonn case have been charged with “aggravated tax evasion” that cost the German treasury close to $500 million.

Last month, the presiding judge issued a preliminary ruling that, for the first time, declared cum-ex a felony, calling it a “collective grab in the treasury.” Punishment has yet to be determined, but the give-it-back and the go-to-prison phases of this calamity are about to begin.

German prosecutors say they will pursue 400 other suspects, unearthed in 56 investigations. Banks large and small will be ordered to hand over cum-ex profits, which could have serious consequences for some. Two have already gone bust.

Dozens of law firms and lawyers may face penalties, too, having drafted highly priced opinions contending there was no law explicitly prohibiting cum-ex and thus it was perfectly legal. That is an argument that many involved might offer in the coming years of litigation. They may insist that if Germany didn’t make the trade impossible, they did not break a law. A desk-thumping variation of that defense is already being offered by Hanno Berger, once the most formidable tax auditor in Germany, who later switched sides and became a cum-ex mastermind as well as an ally of Shields and Mora.

Unidentified Flying Stocks

American investment banks and hedge funds have long been the leading laboratory for financial instruments, some a boon to economies (money market funds), others not (collateralized debt obligations). Precisely who invented cum-ex trading, and when, are mysteries, but ground zero for this scandal may have been the London branch of Merrill Lynch.

That is where Shields took his first job in 2002. He has yet to enter a plea — that comes later in the German system — but he has been cooperating with prosecutors in the hope of winning leniency, and he read a long statement at the start of proceedings in September to the panel of judges who will decide the case.

Sitting at a table beside a translator, he said he regretted ever entering the cum-ex world. Back then, though, he had “different information and a different perspective.”

That perspective came largely from Mora, his onetime boss at Merrill Lynch, an obese man fond of wearing loud shirts and Bermuda shorts in London, according to a description in Die Zeit, a German newspaper. A New Zealand publication, Stuff, wrote in October that Mora now lives in a luxurious house overlooking a golf course in Christchurch and owns a portfolio of properties, including an interest in dairy farms.

Through his lawyers, Mora has denied wrongdoing. He has also denied having an eccentric taste in clothing. In 2017, he issued a statement to Stuff ridiculing Die Zeit’s account of his appearance.

“That’s so far from the truth it’s laughable,” he wrote.

At Merrill, Shields’ job was to identify “tax-attractive trades,” as he put it in his testimony. He had joined one of the least visible sectors of the financial world, which pokes at the seams of international finance law, looking for ways to reduce clients’ tax bills.

Many of these were variations of a strategy called “dividend arbitrage,” and right before Shields left Merrill in 2004, he learned about a new one, cum-ex, that would soon become the focus of his life.

Academics have struggled for years to explain the trade and say its impenetrability is part of what made it so successful — as though someone had found a way to weaponize string theory. At the Bonn trial, defendants spent days walking judges through cum-ex’s nuances, with one baffling slide after another.

Suffice it to say, the goal was to fool the financial system so that two investors could claim refunds for dividend taxes that were paid just once.

Some of the best legal minds in Europe spent much of their working hours writing opinions declaring cum-ex within the bounds of the law. One of those lawyers was Hanno Berger, now 69, who provided Shields and Mora with an invaluable legal imprimatur, as well as a kind of remorseless zeal.

A lawyer who worked at the firm Berger founded in 2010, and who under German law can’t be identified by the media, described for the Bonn court a memorable meeting at the office.

Sensitive types, Berger told his underlings that day, should find other jobs.

“Whoever has a problem with the fact that because of our work there are fewer kindergartens being built,” Berger reportedly said, “here’s the door.”

To German prosecutors, Berger is an archetype straight out of a potboiler: the revered enforcer who went to the dark side. In 2012, the government raided his home and law firm. Within hours, he drove to Switzerland, where he now lives.

He will stand trial in the same case as Mora, for aggravated tax evasion. Reached by email, Berger said he remained convinced that cum-ex trading is legal.

“The current prosecution in the context of cum-ex is the attempt of the German tax administration to obscure the failure of the politicians and the legislation in a retroactive way,” he wrote. “This is not appropriate for a state of law!”

‘A Lot of Nonsense’

Berger began working with Shields and Mora after the two left Merrill Lynch for the London branch of HypoVereinsbank, a bank based in Munich. By 2006, Mora’s group was producing immense profits and plenty of internal suspicion. Worried about the growing pileup of tax-withholding credits on the books, Frank Tibo, the bank’s chief tax officer, flew to London in May 2007. He spent the day grilling Mora in a company conference room, Tibo recalled in a recent interview.

“He just told me a lot of nonsense,” Tibo said. “He said he had this toolbox of financial instruments and he’s in the middle of these trades, and that sometimes he doesn’t even know who he is trading with.”

When Tibo tried to signal his concern to executives at UniCredit, the bank’s Italian owner, they didn’t seem to care, he said.

With the financial crisis in full swing, cum-ex was one of the few reliable moneymakers, and the trade boosted careers throughout the City of London. Prosecutors have reportedly opened investigations into transactions handled by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and many others. Dozens of German banks participated in cum-ex deals, too, gobbling up German taxpayer money at the same time they received a rescue package worth more than $500 billion.

Spokesmen for JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, which took over Merrill Lynch in 2008, said they had no comment.

[Lusku]

osa 2

Spoiler:

Suspicious Snapchats

Two weeks ago a former Merrill Lynch investment banker sat in a London restaurant near the Thames and described what had turned him into a whistleblower. In the years after the financial crisis, he said, he noticed that a handful of colleagues on the company’s trading floor were using their personal mobile phones, a breach of company policy. All communication was supposed to be tracked and recorded. These guys were sending self-deleting texts on Snapchat.

“Obviously, they were circumventing controls,” he said.

When he pointed this out to management, the policy was tweaked.

“They said, ‘You can answer a call on your mobile, but you need to immediately move off the floor,’” he recalled. “So these guys would get up from their desks, start walking toward the edge of the floor, send a text message and then walk back. It was a joke.”

The whistleblower requested anonymity for this article because he was discussing confidential information. Nearly all of it was included in a long complaint he sent in 2012 to the Office of the Whistleblower at the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington.

A copy of the complaint was obtained by a team of reporters from Die Zeit, the news website Zeit Online and “Panorama,” which spent four years studying the cum-ex business. The team shared the document with The New York Times.
The complaint lays out, in painstaking detail, how the trades were confected, who executed them and which questions should be asked by investigators to uncover the “sham.” It states that Merrill Lynch earned hundreds of millions of dollars over the previous seven years from cum-ex trades.

A spokeswoman from the SEC declined to comment.

American banks conducted their cum-ex trades overseas, rather than at home, out of fear, the whistleblower said. Specifically, he mentioned a 2008 Senate investigation into “dividend tax abuse” that found it was depriving the Treasury of $100 billion every year. The report led to a ban on dividend arbitrage tied to stock in U.S. corporations.

But nothing prevented American bankers from conducting such trades with foreign companies on foreign soil.

Eventually, American investors joined in, too. German efforts to stamp out cum-ex with legislation, in 2007 and 2009, left holes through which certain types of financial players could still crawl. This included private pension plans in the United States, a niche financial product for wealthy people who want the kind of privacy, and exotic investment options, that Fidelity doesn’t offer.

“These U.S. pension plans became the holy grail for cum-ex trading,” said Niels Fastrup, a co-author with Thomas Svaneborg of “The Great Tax Robbery.” “They were perceived by tax authorities as very trustworthy, and all European countries had agreements with the U.S., so these plans could claim 100% of withheld taxes.”

But in 2011, a clerk in the Bonn Federal Central Tax Office, who was interviewed by the German media team and has remained anonymous, came across tax refund applications that looked dubious. They were from a single American pension fund that had bought, then quickly sold, $7 billion in German stock. Now it wanted a tax refund of $60 million. The fund had just one beneficiary.

Instead of paying the refund, the clerk made inquiries. She soon received a peppery letter from a German law firm that threatened to hold her “PERSONALLY” accountable “under criminal, disciplinary and liability law.” The clerk reported all of this to prosecutors, which ultimately led to the trial in Bonn.

Last year, a crew from “Panorama” tracked down the fund’s beneficiary, Gregory Summers, who lives in a grand home in Green Brook, New Jersey. A reporter tried to interview Summers in his driveway as he sat in the passenger seat of a black Mercedes-Benz.

“I can’t talk to you,” he said, and the Mercedes drove away.

Messages left with Summers’ family were not returned.

Cum-Exit

The cum-ex reckoning has already begun. Several banks have been fined (Deutsche Bank, UniCredit), one has apologized (Macquarie), others have pledged cooperation with investigators (Santander, Deutsche Bank) and two are insolvent. A lawyer from Freshfields, a prestigious London firm that provided cum-ex advice, was briefly jailed by the German authorities in late November and has reportedly been charged with fraud.

If the Bonn trial ends in convictions, stiff penalties are expected.

“They won’t even have to prove that the banks were complicit or that the banks were trying to evade taxes,” said Dierk Brandenburg of Scope, a credit-rating agency in London. “The fact that they benefited means they have to give the money back.”

Investors will have problems of their own. Many have said they had no idea how cum-ex traders returned such dazzling profits. That defense became less plausible in 2012, after the German government spent millions of dollars to buy 11 hard drives from industry insiders. The hard drives were filled with marketing flyers, written by bankers, who sold cum-ex with an antigovernment pitch.

“We learned that it was very common for these bankers to have conversations over coffee with clients about cum-ex,” said Norbert Walter-Borjans, a former minister of finance for North Rhine-Westphalia. “They would say, ‘If you have a problem with how your hard-earned money is being spent in taxes, we’ve got an idea for you.’”

https://www.news18.com/news/world/robbe ... 72855.html

[Pasi Fist]

[Pasi Fist]

Vähän unohti velvollisuuksiaan.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... kim-jun-ki

South Korean businessman convicted of rape gets suspended sentence

Ex-chair of DB Group Kim Jun-ki ‘forgot his responsibilities’, says Seoul court

The former head of a South Korean conglomerate who was convicted of raping his maid and sexually assaulting a secretary has been given a suspended sentence.

Kim Jun-ki, the 75-year-old former chair of DB Group, which has activities in finance and steel, repeatedly violated the two women, the Seoul central district court found.

But on Friday he was handed a 30-month jail sentence suspended for four years, on the grounds of his age and what it said was the “forgiveness” of his victims...

[Pasi Fist]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... halet-debt

Prince Andrew to face legal case over reported £5m ski chalet debt

The Duke of York is caught in a dispute over a Swiss chalet purchased with his former wife


The ski chalet in Verbier, Switzerland, bought in 2014 by Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah, Duchess of York.

Prince Andrew is caught in a dispute over a Swiss ski chalet with reports legal proceedings have been launched against him over an unpaid bill.

Le Temps newspaper said Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, bought the holiday home in the Verbier ski resort for £18.3m (22 million Swiss francs) in 2014.

But the pair did not meet a deadline in December 2019 to pay off a chunk of that sum for the seven-bedroom chalet, the French-language daily newspaper reported.

A spokeswoman for the Duke of York said: “We can confirm there is a dispute between the two parties in this matter.

“The contractual details remain the subject of a confidentiality agreement and prevent further discussion.”

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the reports.

The Le Temps report claims nearly £5m was due to be paid over the chalet at the end of 2019, which has since risen to £6.7m (eight million Swiss francs).

It is understood that Andrew and Sarah had intended to sell the chalet, and the proceeds of the sale were intended to clear any outstanding debt, a move which is believed to be known to the lender.

Law firm Etude du Ritz has been instructed to launch legal proceedings, Le Temps reports.

[Pasi Fist]

Suhmur suursuhmur.
https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000006517402.html

Long Play: Itä-Suomen yliopiston rahoja on ohjattu arkkipiispa Leon Karjalan kielen seuralle

Sivuston mukaan opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö aloitti tammikuussa valtionavustustarkastuksen seuran taloudenpidosta.


Arkkipiispa Leo

Ortodoksisen kirkon arkkipiispan Leon eli Leo Makkosen perustamalle Karjalan kielen seuralle on kanavoitu satojatuhansia euroja julkista rahaa Itä-Suomen yliopiston kautta, kertoo verkkojulkaisu Long Play. Julkaisun kartoituksen perusteella seuran taloudenpidossa ja karjalan kielen elvytyshankkeissa on muitakin epäselvyyksiä.

Jutun mukaan seuralle on vuosina 2010–2019 maksettu julkista rahoitusta ainakin 1,2 miljoonaa euroa. Avustuksista huolimatta seura on Long Playn mukaan taloudellisessa umpikujassa, ja viime vuodenvaihteesta lähtien sen toiminta on ollut jäissä. Long Play on saanut tietoonsa, että työntekijöiden saamatta jäämiä palkkoja peritään myös oikeusteitse.

Jutussa kerrotaan, että opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö aloitti tammikuussa valtionavustustarkastuksen seuran taloudenpidosta vuosilta 2017–2019. Long Play sanoo pyytäneensä useaan kertaan arkkipiispa Leoa kommentoimaan tilannetta, mutta tämä kieltäytyi.

[Le Sorbusier]

Tuota skeneä parin tutun kautta seuranneena ei varsinaisesti yllätä, ja Long Playn jutussa oli tuttuja ikäviä tapauksia. Matskua olisi ilmeisesti ollut toiseenkin mokomaan, esim. nyt jäi pois tää taannoinen taideväärennösjuttu ja kaikki Vuosaaren kulttuurikeskukseen liittyvä kikkailu (Ambrosius mm. siirsi jossain vaiheessa hiippakuntansa vuokralle itsensä ja Hyvien Veljien ja Siskojen hallinnoiman säätiön pyörittämään kulttuurikeskukseen). Itseä huvittaa aina kun suursuhmur Ambrosiusta hehkutetaan mediassa "mestarillisena verkostoitujana", se kun ei kuulosta ainakaan positiiviselta titteliltä omaan korvaan.