Investors' Billion-Dollar Fraud Fighters

- By PETER LATTMAN - The New York Times - October 8, 2012

A few days after securing the largest shareholder recovery arising from the financial crisis - $2.43 billion from Bank of America - the plaintiffs' lawyer Max W. Berger was not taking a victory lap.

"It makes me sad that in all of these scandals, no matter how good a job we do of getting results and inflicting pain, the government doesn't seem to follow suit, and nobody learns, and it's business as usual," he said in an interview.

After a pregnant pause, Mr. Berger broke into a sly smile. He had another thought: "It gives us a lot of business, but it still makes me sad."

With last month's settlement with Bank of America, which resolved claims that the bank had misled shareholders about its acquisition of an ailing Merrill Lynch, Mr. Berger, 66, has now been responsible for six securities class-action settlements of more than $1 billion. His firm, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, based in Manhattan, has represented investors in five of the 10 largest securities-fraud recoveries. So far, it has recovered $4.5 billion for investors in cases connected to the subprime mortgage collapse.

"He is unquestionably one the giants of the plaintiffs' bar," said Brad S. Karp, the managing partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, who represented Bank of America and has faced off against Mr. Berger in several other cases. "And what sets Max apart, beyond his talents as a lawyer, is that he's a mensch, a person of real humility and integrity."

There was a time, not too long ago, when the lions of the securities class-action bar were described in far less flattering terms. For decades, Melvyn I. Weiss and William S. Lerach, a pair of brash, crafty plaintiffs' lawyers, dominated this lucrative pocket of the legal industry. Their firm, Milberg Weiss, revolutionized shareholder class-action suits by filing streams of cases against corporations, accusing them of accounting fraud. Critics called their aggressive tactics legalized blackmail. Congress passed laws aimed at reining in their practices.

The careers of Mr. Weiss and Mr. Lerach ended in disgrace in 2006, when their firm was indicted on charges that it had funneled illegal kickbacks to clients to induce them to sue. Mr. Weiss, Mr. Lerach and two other Milberg Weiss partners ultimately served prison terms. (It did not help the standing of the plaintiffs' bar that at about the same time, Richard F. Scruggs, the Mississippi class-action lawyer, was imprisoned for trying to bribe a judge.)

"To be tarred by those brushes was very upsetting, but it was even worse to have everyone presume that we operated in the same way," Mr. Berger said. "After they were charged, I can't tell you how many people said, 'Well, isn't that what all of you do?' "

Yet a half-decade after Milberg's downfall, there has been a shift in the public image and reputation of the securities class-action bar. The Bank of America settlement, which is still subject to judicial approval, comes at a moment when plaintiffs' lawyers are being praised for extracting stiff penalties from banks related to their actions during the housing boom and the subsequent economic collapse. At the same time, resource-constrained government regulators have been criticized for not being tough enough.

In several cases, private plaintiffs have settled lawsuits for amounts far greater than the government received in similar actions. Bank of America, for instance, paid the Securities and Exchange Commission just $150 million to settle the commission's lawsuit connected to the Merrill acquisition. Judge Jed S. Rakoff reluctantly approved the S.E.C. settlement, calling it "inadequate and misguided" and the dollar amount "paltry."

"The securities class-action bar has come under relentless assault over the years," said J. Robert Brown Jr., a corporate law professor at the University of Denver. "Yet these suits, especially the ones tied to the financial crisis, actually have had real value in the capital markets because companies need to know that there is a heavy price to pay for their misconduct."

There are still detractors who scoff at that notion. These critics view securities class-action lawyers as bounty hunters who file nuisance lawsuits against deep-pocketed targets and then force them to settle rather than engage in costly litigation. They argue that the settlements have little deterrent effect because the payments almost always come from the corporations, not the executives and directors running the companies.

And questions have arisen over plaintiffs' lawyers' campaign contributions to local politicians who control the selection of legal counsel for shareholder lawsuits filed by public pension funds.

But even the most vocal opponents of securities-fraud class actions acknowledge that a variety of factors, including a combination of federal legislation and court rulings, have curbed abuses in the system. Many of the weakest cases are now thrown out earlier, and large institutional shareholders like state pension funds and insurance companies have taken greater control of the lawsuits.

They are also reining in the lawyers' fees. In the past, plaintiffs' lawyers received 20 percent to one-third of the settlement amount. Today the average fee award as a percentage of the recovery is much lower. In Bank of America, for example, Bernstein Litowitz and two other firms - Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check and Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer - are expected to ask for about $150 million, or 6 percent of the settlement.

"Things have definitely improved," said Theodore H. Frank, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a longtime critic of abusive class actions. "Is it perfect? No. Is it better? Yes."

Legal experts say the class actions filed after the financial crisis highlight the improvements. The lawsuits were far more risky and complex than the template "strike suits" that plaintiffs' firms once churned out every time a company's share price plummeted. And unlike large corporate scandals like Enron or WorldCom, there were no balance-sheet restatements or criminal convictions to use as evidence.

"We never viewed these cases as easy but felt we needed to be in them in a big way, so we really doubled down," Mr. Berger said.

Bernstein Litowitz's recent settlements read like a who's who of the "too big to fail" era. Wachovia and its auditor paid its bondholders $627 million to resolve charges related to its mortgage holdings. Merrill Lynch settled claims that it had misled buyers of mortgage products for $315 million. Lehman Brothers' underwriters paid $426 million to end a lawsuit over its stock sales. Washington Mutual's underwriters and insurers paid $205 million to investors in the now-collapsed bank.

The big mortgage-related settlements are expected to add up to hundreds of millions in fees for Bernstein Litowitz, a 52-lawyer firm. Mr. Berger and his three founding partners started the firm in 1983 after splitting off from Kreindler & Kreindler, a plaintiffs' firm best known for its aviation-disaster litigation.

The Bank of America settlement is a boon for the firm, ending nearly four years of bruising litigation and coming less than a month before it was set for trial. The lawsuit accused Bank of America of concealing from its shareholders, who were voting on the Merrill acquisition, the billions of dollars in mounting losses at Merrill, as well as billions in bonuses being paid out to Merrill executives.

Bernstein Litowitz and two other firms represented five plaintiffs: two Ohio pension funds, a Texas pension fund and two European pensions. Working with Mr. Berger on the case were his partners Mark Lebovitch, Hannah Ross and Steven B. Singer.

"This case will now serve as Exhibit A for corporate directors tempted to withhold information from shareholders," Mr. Berger said. "The message isn't complicated: Just tell the truth."

New matters, meanwhile, are coming in. Bernstein Litowitz was appointed lead plaintiffs' counsel in a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase related to the bank's multibillion-dollar trading loss out of a unit in London. And it is involved in the litigation against Facebook and Morgan Stanley over the social networking company's botched initial public offering of stock.

Mr. Berger said finding cases had rarely been a problem.

"I can't predict the next scandal," Mr. Berger said. "But I know that fraud is a growth industry, and so is greed."

Are The Criminal "Banksters" Wrecking The Global Economy?

And What Really is The Trilateral Commission?

- By Jon Rappoport

Yes, the infamous Trilateral Commission still exists.

Many people think the Trilateral Commission, created in 1973 by David Rockefeller, is a relic of an older time. - Think again.

Patrick Wood, author of Trilaterals Over Washington, points out there are only 87 members of the Trilateral Commission who live in America. Obama appointed eleven of them to posts in his administration.

Keep in mind that the original stated goal of the Trilateral Commission was to create "a new international economic order." Knowing that you have to break eggs to make an omelette, consider how the following Trilateral Commission members, in key Obama posts, can help engender further national chaos; erase our sovereign national borders; and install binding international agreements that will envelop our economy and money in a deeper global collective: a new world order:

Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary;

James Jones, National Security Advisor;

Paul Volker, Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee;

Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence.

All Trilateralists.

In the run-up to his inauguration after the 2008 presidential election, Obama was tutored by the co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

In Europe, the financially embattled nations of Greece and Italy brought in Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti as prime ministers. Both men are Trilateral Commission members, and Monti is the former European chairman of the Trilateral Commission.

In the US, since 1973, author Wood counts eight out of 10 US Trade Representative appointments, and six out of eight World Bank presidencies, as American Trilateral members.

Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote, four years before birthing the Trilateral Commission with his godfather, David Rockefeller: "[The] nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force. International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation state."

Several other noteworthy Trilateral Commission members: George HW Bush; Bill Clinton; Dick Cheney; Al Gore. The first three men helped sink the US further into debt by fomenting wars abroad and Gore's cap and trade blueprint would destroy industrial economies, while vastly increasing the numbers of people in Third World countries who have no access to modern sources of energy.

Does all this offer a clue as to why the US economy has failed to recover from the Wall Street debacle of 2008, why the federal bailout was a handout to super-rich criminals, and why Obama took actions which prevented a recovery?

A closer look at Tim Geithner's circle of economic advisers reveals the chilling Trilateral Commission effect: Paul Volker; Alan Greenspan; E. Gerald Corrigan (director, Goldman Sachs); and Peter G Peterson (former CEO, Lehman Brothers, former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations). These criminal men are all Trilateral Commission members.

How many foxes in the hen house do we need, before we realize their Trilateral Commission agenda is controlling the direction of our economy?

The Trilateral Commission has no interest in building up the American economy. They want to torpedo U.S. economy, as part of the end-game of creating a new international currency, ushering in a de facto Globalist management system for the whole planet.

If there are any doubts on the question of Trilateral Commission goals, David Rockefeller himself, the founder of the Trilateral Commission, in his Memoirs (2003) clarifies by saying:

"Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure---one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

Even in what many people mistakenly think of as the Trilateral Commission's heyday, the 1970s, there were few who realized its overarching power.

Here is a close-up snap shot of a remarkable moment from out of the past. It's a through-the-looking-glass secret---in the form of a conversation between a reporter, Jeremiah Novak, and two Trilateral Commission members, Karl Kaiser and Richard Cooper. The interview took place in 1978. It concerned the issue of who exactly, during President Carter's administration, was formulating US economic and political policy.

The careless and off-hand attitude of Trilateralists Kaiser and Cooper is astonishing. It's as if they're saying, "What we're revealing is already out in the open, it's too late to do anything about it, why are you so worked up, we've already won..."

NOVAK (the reporter): Is it true that a private [Trilateral committee] led by Henry Owen of the US and made up of [Trilateral] representatives of the US, UK, West Germany, Japan, France and the EEC is coordinating the economic and political policies of the Trilateral countries [which would include the US]?

COOPER: Yes, they have met three times.

NOVAK: Yet, in your recent paper you state that this committee should remain informal because to formalize 'this function might well prove offensive to some of the Trilateral and other countries which do not take part.' Who are you afraid of?

KAISER: Many countries in Europe would resent the dominant role that West Germany plays at these [Trilateral] meetings.

COOPER: Many people still live in a world of separate nations, and they would resent such coordination [of policy].

NOVAK: But this [Trilateral] committee is essential to your whole policy. How can you keep it a secret or fail to try to get popular support [for its decisions on how Trilateral member nations will conduct their economic and political policies]?

COOPER: Well, I guess it's the press' job to publicize it.

NOVAK: Yes, but why doesn't President Carter come out with it and tell the American people that [US] economic and political power is being coordinated by a [Trilateral] committee made up of Henry Owen and six others? After all, if [US] policy is being made on a multinational level, the people should know.

COOPER: President Carter and Secretary of State Vance have constantly alluded to this in their speeches.

KAISER: It just hasn't become an issue.

SOURCE: "Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management," ed. by Holly Sklar, 1980. South End Press, Boston. Pages 192-3.

Of course, although Kaiser and Cooper claimed everything being manipulated by the Trilateral Commission committee was already out in the open, it wasn't.

Their interview slipped under the mainstream media radar, which is to say, it was ignored and buried. It didn't become a scandal on the level of, say, Watergate, although its essence was far larger than Watergate.

US economic and political policy run by a committee of the Trilateral Commission---the Commission had been created in 1973 as an "informal discussion group" by David Rockefeller and his sidekick, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who would become Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor.

Shortly after Carter won the presidential election, his aide, Hamilton Jordan, said that if after the inauguration, Cy Vance and Brzezinski came on board as secretary of state and national security adviser, "We have lost. And I will quit." Lost---because both men were powerful members of the Trilateral Commission and their appointment to key positions would signal a surrender of White House control to the Commission.

Vance and Brzezinski were appointed secretary of state and national security adviser, as Jordan feared. But he didn't quit. He became Carter's chief of staff.

Now consider the vast propaganda efforts of the past 40 years, on so many levels, to install the idea that all nations and peoples of the world are a single Collective.

From a very high level of political and economic power, this propaganda op has had the objective of grooming the population for a planet that is one coagulated mass, run and managed by one force. A central engine of that force is the Trilateral Commission.

Jon Rappoport, the author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Health watch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.

The AAP 2012 Circumcision Policy Statement and What I Have Learned from a Decade of Intactivism

- By Karen Glennon - Monday, August 27, 2012

I have long said that the medical community will not stop soliciting circumcision voluntarily. I have long said that the most effective way to significantly reduce circumcision in America is by educating the individual of child bearing age (or younger) because circumcision happens one parental consent, and one baby at a time.

Each parent that says no to circumcision will raise a child to whom the whole body is normal. I am on the 40 year plan with my intact education and advocacy. If I reach a young adult in their teen years now and they go on to have a whole child in a few years - then that child grows up with a normal whole body. In 20 years, that (1st generation) whole child will be an adult who may have a (2nd generation) whole child of their own. In 20 years that 2nd generation whole child may have one of their own and we’ve arrived at the 40 year mark with 2 generations of acceptance and appreciation and normalization of the natural male body.

How do we get young people to leave their future children whole? We educate them about the anatomy and function of the foreskin. In all my years of face to face demonstration/education on this issue, I have never failed to get a young person to listen to me talk to them about normal sexual development and function of the sexual organs. Young people do not get this information from their parents, from school, from text books, from porn, from their peers or from pop culture. I cannot tell you how many people (of all ages) have said to me “No one has ever told me this.” (I get this same response from older adults too!)

If you do not know what something is made of and how it works, it doesn’t have value to you. You never go to a yard sale, an antique shop, an auction and pick up an item you do not recognize, you know nothing about and say “Wow, this is so neat, I just have to buy it!” You cannot find value in something if you do not know what it is and what it does. The same is true for the foreskin. This is exactly why the prevailing myths in America of “oh, it’s gross” and “it’s dirty” and “it’s a useless flap of skin” thrive – people know nothing of its structure and function.

They do not know:

• that the foreskin contains far more fine touch nerve receptors than the exterior parts of the female clitoris (over 20,000 verses about 8,000).
• that the foreskin is a double layered skin system and is approximately 12-15 square inches in an adult. 
• that the end of the penis is supposed to be mucosal tissue like the inside of the cheek or the inside of the eyelid.
• that the foreskin slides and has a gliding action during intercourse, all the while providing exquisite sensations for the man that shape his orgasmic response.
• that this gliding action maintains a woman’s vaginal lubrication and does not dry her vagina out, making for a more comfortable experience for both partners and eliminating the need for artificial lubricants. 
• that having the foreskin increases the girth of the penis and that it allows a man to have enough skin to accommodate his whole penis – intact men are larger. 
• that intact men often use shorter, gentler strokes, thus maintaining more contact between his pubic bone and hers, and her clitoris. 
• that intact men do not need to pound and thrust like many circumcised men do to achieve orgasm.

When they learn this – suddenly the foreskin has value! Once a person sees it has function for the man and for his partner, it is much easier for them to allow into their minds the idea that a man shouldn’t be robbed of this function and value. All of a sudden his bodily integrity seems important. His right to choose seems important.

The fact that the medical community is performing amputative surgery on a baby with no deformity or disease seems important (and wrong). The fact that the American government enacted federal legislation to protect girls from genital cutting but doesn’t protect boys seems important (and wrong).

It’s easy to counter the myths when you believe the foreskin has some importance. All of a sudden hygiene is easy to explain with a shower and “retract, rinse, replace” is easily understood.

All of a sudden infection is easily explained by the fact that girls get genital infections and we medicate them, we do not amputate their genitals. We can do the same for men. (Also, if penile infections were really such an issue, we’d have a section in the drug store for penile infection creams. We certainly have a female genital infection medication section – full of creams and products to “freshen” our nether regions. Ever wondered why we don’t have these products for men? Perhaps these infected penises are truly a myth!)

All of a sudden it’s not just a little snip. It’s the elimination of what will ultimately become 50% or more of the penile skin. It is the destruction of an exquisite system designed to protect the glans in babyhood from the diaper environment, and from abrasion with clothing for the rest of life.

None of these facts sway people until they first establish a value for the foreskin. Until they understand and believe a value in it, circumcision will always be a valid 'parental choice' to protect a baby from disease and to conform to society (in America).

The medical community will not stop soliciting circumcision until the liability of risk outweighs the profits to be gained. This will only happen when lawsuits for damage are greater than profits. While there have been many gross injuries and even deaths, they don’t get the attention they deserve because we don’t value the foreskin more than the risks of cutting babies. The uneducated public is willing to ignore the few horrible mishaps for the greater myth of a cleaner, prettier penis because they don’t know the value of the foreskin.

The general public will say NO to circumcision when the medical community solicits it - IF they know the value of the foreskin, the truth of the procedure and what their son loses forever. It is my commitment that they be informed and that they know the value and that they make the right decision for their son and the man he will become.

I know that so many of us are disheartened by the AAP’s new policy statement, but we have to realize that the AAP is a professional trade organization and it exists for the promotion of its members – pediatric doctors. It is not, and never will be, a patient advocacy group. They have a profit line to maintain and a drop in circumcision rates is not beneficial to them.

They will not stop soliciting circumcision until one of two things happens (or both):

1) The financial risk of performing this unethical surgery outweigh the profit to be made: lawsuits for botched circumcisions or bodily integrity violations cost too much.  

2) The majority of parents staunchly refuse, forcing them to do an internal evaluation of the procedure. I suspect it would take 75% or so refusing before this happens.

Don’t lose faith. The truth has its own longevity. The human body is genetically programmed to form a foreskin. It will always do this. All we need to do is understand its function to give it value. That which we value, we care for. It’s all about education.

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