• Bank Information Center provides info to NGO's and social groups on IMF
• Bilaterals.org against bilateral trade and investment agreements to benefit transnational corporations.
• Bretton Woods Project critical voices on WB/IMF
• Canadian Action Party News & Events,  on NAFTA, globalization
• Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives News, nafta info
• Council of Canadians largest Canadian org against MAI
• Madre Multilateral Agreement Investment info
• MAI Democracy for Sale Nafta on Steroids
• MAI-NOT anti-globalization, MAI info
• Multinational Monitor Essential.org
• New Democratic Party, Canada News
• Polaris Institute retooling citizens movements for social change
• Sierra Club, Sierra Club Canada, media releases
• Sierra Club, Sierra Club Canada, Halifax
• Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research

• Corporate Ethics & Governance  company search, investigations, issues.

• DOJ underfunded by design?
• Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade larg
• Export-Import Bank
• Merril Lynch & Co, MER
• US Council for International Business

• Accounting Fraud Bob Jenson, Trinity University, 
• Catbird Seat want to buy a good audit?
• Center for Public Integrity non partisan educational org
• Corporate Crime Reporter, Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990's
• Endgame Multimillion dollar fines paid by corporations, listed
• Silicon Investor search

• CALPERS  California Public Employees Retirement System, independent board of directors drive.
• ClassActionAmerica
• Corporate Ethics & Governance  company search, investigations, issues.
• Corporate Governance  stakeholders, links, forums on corporate governance.
• Corporate Governance.net
• Findlaw.Corporate Corporate counsel center
• Newstrove False Accounting

• AICPA American Institute of Certified Public Accountants..
• Cendant
• DOJ underfunded by design?
• Merril Lynch & Co, MER
• Stanford Law School, Securities Class Action Clearinghouse  with Cornerstone Research
• SRI Media Sustainability Indexes, Dow Jones, STOXX Ltd, SAM Group

• Congo Cook Book track Enron, Lay.  The Ballad of Kenny-Boy.
• Corporate Crime Reporter, Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990's
• Daily Enron, news, history, docs
• Dubya Report, the Corporate Corruption Administration
• Endgame Multimillion dollar fines paid by corporations, listed
• Transparency.org,

• Findlaw.Corporate Corporate counsel center
• Fraud Watch Magazine subscription, advertise
• Newstrove False Accounting
• Transparency.org, Corruption Perceptions Index, Angola, Azerbaijan, Chad, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq , Kazakhstan, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen highest on the list.  Large oil corporations should provide info on fees royalties. 

• BizJournals, news by industry
• DOJ underfunded by design?
• Enron.com, website
• US Council for International Business

• Corporate Fraud, tripod cattle futures trading, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Tyson Foods, 
• Hillary Clinton supported and voted for the invasion of Iraq.
• Top 10 Weasels
• Wikipedia

• BizJournals, news by industry
• DOJ underfunded by design?
• ZDiamond

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- As R. Allen Stanford assured clients last week that U.S. investigators were conducting “routine examinations” of his Texas investment advisory firm, a lawyer for his company’s Antigua affiliate was backing out.

The 58-year-old billionaire, now accused of running a “massive, ongoing fraud,” spent his final weeks at the firm struggling to soothe clients while disregarding subpoenas that sought to account for almost $8 billion of their money, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulators pounced days after a lawyer at the Antigua bank at the heart of the case “disaffirmed” everything he had told authorities.

“The attorney’s withdrawal is a massive red flag” that “screams fraud,” said Peter Henning, who teaches criminal and securities law at Wayne State University in Detroit. “If the SEC hadn’t turned up the heat by that point, it did then.”

The SEC’s civil suit accused Antigua-based Stanford International Bank of touting “improbable, if not impossible” returns while selling certificates of deposits to investors for more than a decade. A federal judge in Dallas agreed to freeze assets and appoint a receiver to account for the roughly $8 billion investors spent on the CDs, according to the SEC.

The attorney who stepped down was Thomas Sjoblom at Proskauer Rose LLP in Washington, according to a person familiar with the matter. He declined to comment. Stanford spokesman Brian Bertsch referred questions to the regulator.

Madoff’s Arrest

The SEC had been investigating Houston-based Stanford Group since at least last summer about sales of the CDs. The inquiry intensified after the December arrest of New York money manager Bernard Madoff, who allegedly confessed to masterminding a $50 billion fraud in which early investors were promised steady returns and paid with money from later participants.

Stanford Group, selling the CDs through a network of financial advisers, told clients their funds would be placed mainly in easily sellable financial instruments, monitored by more than 20 analysts and audited by regulators on the Caribbean nation of Antigua, the SEC said.

Instead, the “vast majority” of the portfolio was managed by Allen Stanford and the Antigua subsidiary’s chief financial officer, James Davis, according to the regulator. A “substantial” part of the portfolio was invested in private equity and real estate, it said.

Wire Transfers Stop

A day after Madoff’s arrest, Pershing LLC, the Jersey City, New Jersey-based clearing firm, told Stanford Group it would no longer process wire transfers to its Antigua affiliate, citing suspicions about its reported investment returns, according to the SEC.

In the past several weeks, as investigators sent subpoenas in an attempt to account for investor money, Stanford and Davis failed to appear for testimony or provide any documents, the agency said. Laura Pendergest-Holt, a member of Stanford International’s investment committee, couldn’t account for the funds, and nor could a former senior investment officer whom the SEC didn’t identify, the agency said. She and Davis were also named as defendants in the civil case.

Attorneys for Allen Stanford, Davis and Pendergest-Holt couldn’t be located for comment. Julie Preuitt, an official in the SEC’s Fort Worth office, declined to comment on Stanford’s whereabouts. The receiver will focus on trying to locate remaining investor funds, she said.

‘Every Breath’

On about Feb. 6, Allen Stanford imposed a two-month moratorium on early redemptions of CDs, according to the SEC. Then, on Feb. 11, he wrote a letter to clients to address press reports about the U.S. inquiries.

“Regulatory officers have conveyed to us these visits are part of their routine examinations,” he wrote, according to a copy obtained by Bloomberg. In an e-mail the next day, he told employees he’d “fight with every breath to continue to uphold our good name” in the face of the investigations.

Yesterday morning, the U.S. Marshal’s office in Houston sent a 15-person task force to secure files and computers at Stanford’s offices in the Galleria shopping district, said Alfredo Perez, a spokesman for the agency.

Stanford Group’s alleged fraud wasn’t limited to the sale of CDs, the SEC claimed. Since 2005, Stanford Group advisers sold more than $1 billion of a proprietary mutual fund “wrap program,” named Stanford Allocation Strategy, “by using materially false and misleading historical performance data,” according to the SEC complaint.

The allegedly false data helped the program grow from less than $10 million in 2004 to more than $1.2 billion, generating fees exceeding $25 million.

‘Strange’ Numbers

Since 1993, the bank has reported annual investment gains ranging from 11.5 percent to 16.5 percent, except last year, when it reported a loss of 1.3 percent, according to the SEC. The numbers were at times “strange,” hitting exactly 15.71 percent in 1995 and 1996, the agency said. Stanford International Bank says it has 30,000 clients and $7.2 billion in assets under management, according to the SEC.

The Stanford Financial companies, including Stanford Group, Stanford International Bank and Stanford Trust, were founded by Allen Stanford, who is their chairman. The Texas native was listed last year by Forbes magazine as the 605th-richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $2 billion.

Allen Stanford is a citizen of the U.S. and of Antigua & Barbuda after being naturalized in that Caribbean country 10 years ago, according to a biography on the company’s Web site. He was knighted by the Antiguan government in 2006 and now uses the title “Sir.” Stanford Group has 19 offices in the U.S. and more than $43 billion under management or advisement, according to its Web site.

July 30 -August 1, 2010 -- Bush's ambassador to eastern Caribbean protected Stanford operations    ...   Mary K. Ourisman, the Texas-born socialite wife of Maryland car dealer Mandy Ourisman, helped provide diplomatic and legal cover for jailed former Stanford International Bank chief Allen Stanford, according to Stanford insiders who spoke to WMR. Mary Ourisman was George W. Bush's ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean States, which include Antigua and Barbuda, the headquarters for Stanford's one-time global banking and financial services empire that collapsed in 2009 after it was discovered to be a Ponzi scheme. Stanford is in prison in Texas and has been refused bail as a flight risk -- Stanford is also a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda. He is scheduled to go on trial in January 2011, conveniently two months after the congressional election in November. Stanford's campaign contributions fell into the coffers of congressional members of both Democrats and Republicans.  more search terms: Mary Ourisman, Antigua, Barbuda, ponzi scheme, campaign contributions, Bush, GOP Laura Bush, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Vincent, Grenadines, Texas, money laundering, Lester Bird, Baldwin Spencer, Debra-Mae Lovell, Horald Lovell, Hillary Cliton, Charlesworth Shelley, Hewlett & Company, north London office, Stogniew and Associates, Mexia, Anna Nicole Smith.  MORE  WayneMadsenReport