Anglo Tapes

Scofflaw

For anyone who has missed these so far: http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/inside-anglo-the-secret-recordings-29366837.html

TAPE RECORDINGS from inside doomed Anglo Irish Bank reveal for the first time how the bank's top executives lied to the Government about the true extent of losses at the institution.

The astonishing tapes show senior manager John Bowe, who had been involved in negotiations with the Central Bank, laughing and joking as he tells another senior manager, Peter Fitzgerald, how Anglo was luring the State into giving it billions of euro.

Mr Fitzgerald had not been involved in the negotiations with the Central Bank and has confirmed he was unaware of any strategy or intention to mislead the authorities. Mr Bowe, in a statement last night, categorically denied that he had misled the Central Bank.

Obviously, the Indo is taking a libel risk here, but the tapes are fairly damning. Undoubtedly they show that Anglo led the Central Bank into supporting them by suggesting a smaller sum than they knew they needed, with the expectation that once it had committed to that level of support, the CBI would have no choice but to continue support in order to save the money they had already put in, whereas if they saw the full amount up front, the CBI might decide the cost to the taxpayer was too high - and when I say they "show that", I mean that's explicitly stated in the recorded conversation:

“The strategy here is you pull them in, you get them to write a big cheque and they have to keep - they have to support their money,” says Mr Bowe, in the recorded phonecall, of dealings with the authorities. “If it doesn’t look too big at the outset - if it looks big, big enough to be important, but not too big that it kind of spoils everything, then, then I think you have a chance.”

cordially,
Scofflaw

Call me Al

It is quite damning alright. Hard to explain their way out of this tbh. I am not shocked at the revelations but it is good to hear the discussions detailing what their dishonest approach was going to be.
They even acknowledge that bank nationalisation is a possibility when discussing where this will all end.

Slideshowbob

How did the Irish Independent get their hands on them?

tayto lover

If these tapes are true and if there is any justice at all in Ireland then we should see people in court for defrauding the taxpayer.
BUT there is not and we won't.
Justice is only for the little people.

listermint

tayto lover wrote: »

If these tapes are true and if there is any justice at all in Ireland then we should see people in court for defrauding the taxpayer.
BUT there is not and we won't.
Justice is only for the little people.

Justice is for people who pretend they dont speak english to the TV license inspector.

Laughing about bringing down the entire banking sector of a nation means nothing when your bonuses equate to 10 years the average workers pay if not more.

serfboard

Heard these tapes on Morning Ireland and Ray D'arcy this morning. I was just thinking to myself I wonder what people who fought the war of independence and the civil war would say if they heard that we were going to create a country where this would happen.

Then I thought to myself - whatever about what they'd say, I know what they'd do - put these f**kers up against a wall and shoot them.

raymon

July 28, 2008: Druid’s Glen

Taoiseach Brian Cowen
Sean FitzPatrick (Anglo)
Fintan Drury (Anglo)
Gary McGann (Anglo)
Alan Gray (Appointed in 2007 by Cowen as a Director of the Central Bank/Financial Regulator)

Let us never forget.

BFDCH.

so what can be done about this? what laws have been broken here? can they be arrested?

if this is true (and i have no reason to doubt it) they should be destroyed. everything they own should be taken from them and they should be stuck in the deepest hole we have.

Taxburden carrier

BFDCH. wrote: »

so what can be done about this? what laws have been broken here? can they be arrested?

if this is true (and i have no reason to doubt it) they should be destroyed. everything they own should be taken from them and they should be stuck in the deepest hole we have.

Totally agree but not a chance in hell of it happening:mad:

ParkRunner

Taxburden carrier wrote: »

Totally agree but not a chance in hell of it happening:mad:

In any country where people had any pride in their country there would be rioting on the streets. Long may any young person with any talent get out of Ireland and stay out

niallers1

Are the guards investigating .. How come nobody is in prison for this.

The people in the department of finance who are complicit in this should also be charged.

daithicarr

Well they should get something similar to around a year for each €70,000 they knowingly defrauded from the state .

Their actions robbed each of us of our money, prospects and as a result friends and family members forced to emigrate.

No accountability will just facilitate is happening again.

Scofflaw

niallers1 wrote: »

Are the guards investigating .. How come nobody is in prison for this.

The people in the department of finance who are complicit in this should also be charged.

The Garda investigation has apparently listed to all these tapes.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Crimsonforce

i am utterly amazed at how these people are walking in our society whilst we all take it up the backside because of their incompetence. Surely if the papers have their hands on this, then the fraud squad had their hands on it before them. After all this is fraud of the highest order. Defrauding the state with intent AND the evidence is them talking on the phone about the largest fraud in the history of this state . This is no whispers, this is fact.

we should be seeing someone go to jail for a stiff sentence.

I am pie

raymon wrote: »

July 28, 2008: Druid’s Glen

Taoiseach Brian Cowen
Sean FitzPatrick (Anglo)
Fintan Drury (Anglo)
Gary McGann (Anglo)
Alan Gray (Appointed in 2007 by Cowen as a Director of the Central Bank/Financial Regulator)

Let us never forget.

And not a single conversation about Anglo was had that day.

"Alright lads, how's work..."

"Ah now Brian, let's just get on with the golf will we"

daithicarr

"Suggestions that “the taxpayer was lured into bailing out” Anglo Irish Bank under false pretences should be fully investigated by the authorities, Fianna Fáil has said."

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/financial-services/opposition-parties-say-anglo-tapes-must-be-investigated-1.1440969

What about investigating if FF did their job properly like investigate the banks claims or analyze them in any way?

cfc.forever

That conversation shows that they were planning on exploiting tax payers, typical bankers..

[Jackass]

I'm still patiently waiting for several top brass at Anglo to see jail time. However it seems all the lads who ran to the USA needent have bothered, a criminal conviction seems laughable at this stage for the minor offense of bankrupting the state through fraud and deception.

On a completely unrelated note, I hope no one here is too worried about the recent rule changes by the central bank to make it easier to get you in court and repossess your home for the struggling banks.

Scofflaw

BFDCH. wrote: »

so what can be done about this? what laws have been broken here? can they be arrested?

if this is true (and i have no reason to doubt it) they should be destroyed. everything they own should be taken from them and they should be stuck in the deepest hole we have.

Sadly, I think we'll find that they have, at absolute worst, been party to signing a contract in bad faith or similar.

Sure, you might think it would obviously be a crime to lure the Central Bank into supporting a failing bank where the senior executives knew there was no hope of repaying the loans, knowing that by initially deliberately understating the extent of the support needed they would be trapped into continued commitment, but....well, basically, as everyone kept saying about the bondholders when we wanted to burn them - due diligence.

The Central Bank was supposed to have known, through the Financial Regulator, the extent of any issues in the Irish banks, right? That it was, on the contrary, so completely clueless that even the €7bn Anglo put up as a lure had them changing their underpants with horror, indicates the extent of the previous decade's utter regulatory failure.

cordially,
Scofflaw

[Jackass]

But surely the fact that the share price (i.e perception of performance of the bank) was propped up by fradulant loans and insider trading, to the extent that it was, would be a serious white collar crime that could result in jail time?

The only thing that annoys me more about the lack of accountability is the lack of any motivation to legislate either retrospectively or for the future. You could virtually do the same thing tomorrow and still get away with it.

Scofflaw

[Jackass] wrote: »

But surely the fact that the share price (i.e perception of performance of the bank) was propped up by fradulant loans and insider trading, to the extent that it was, would be a serious white collar crime that could result in jail time?

It's not insider trading unless bank officials personally profited from that knowledge. And I'm afraid that banks depositing money with other banks for short periods is standard practice - in order to prove that it was done to bamboozle regulators (and the word "regulatards" nearly happened there of its own accord) you would need to show that it was collusion to that end. And even once you'd done that, I doubt you'd have anything, because that's probably not illegal either - at worst, that's probably a regulatory warning to the bank itself.

[Jackass] wrote: »

The only thing that annoys me more about the lack of accountability is the lack of any motivation to legislate either retrospectively or for the future. You could virtually do the same thing tomorrow and still get away with it.

Well, you can't make it illegal retrospectively, or at least you can't prosecute someone for something that wasn't a crime at the time, even if it's glaringly obvious it should have been. The failure to legislate for the future is disturbing.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Bullseye1

In the UK or US people would have already been investigated, gone on Trial and some in jail. But this is Ireland.

Scofflaw

Bullseye1 wrote: »

In the UK or US people would have already been investigated, gone on Trial and some in jail. But this is Ireland.

Also, we'd have had the call recordings straight away...

cordially,
Scofflaw

washman3

The usual FF/FG/LAB apologists seem strangely absent from Boards.ie this evening. These are the guys/gals that always dismiss anybody who dares to seek justice as a 'crank' having a 'whinge about good guys and bad guys'.:mad:

Sand

The transcripts and the tapes themselves are irritating, but they're not surprising. The banks always had a real incentive to lie about their true position. That's a given. What was critical here was that the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator and the DoF had no capacity to challenge their lie (via their own incompetence), and in the absence of information 2 or 3 men (Cowen, Lenihan and Neary to a lesser extent) were naive enough to hope the banks weren't lying this time.

Its highly unlikely either man will face any jail time, any court case or even any real consequences. The quite laughable statements where they claim never to have heard or discussed deceiving the Central Bank is pretty funny in light of tapes where they discuss how they hope to deceive the Central Bank. In Ireland, when it comes to white collar crime so long as you can claim to have *believed* you weren't doing anything illegal then its practically impossible to be convicted.

The real problem is that the banking culture displayed in the Anglo Irish tapes is still alive and well, sustained at taxpayer expense in the Irish "pillar" banks so lauded by Lenihan. The same banks, staffed by the same crowd of idiots are going to fail again in another decade or two. We can only hope they fail on a slightly smaller scale next time.

Additionally - I thought they made a telling point when they noted that if the Central Bank realised how big the hole in the balance sheet was, and how big the cost to the taxpayer would be ultimately that the Central Bank might realise that they had other options. Given the cries of "TINA! TINA!" that surrounds the September guarantee its interesting that even these guys realised that the Irish state and taxpayer had options.

Thankfully for them we had a couple of clowns in Lenihan and Cowen making the calls. I cant for the life of me see Gilmore or Kenny making a better decision though.

raymon

washman3 wrote: »

The usual FF/FG/LAB apologists seem strangely absent from Boards.ie this evening. These are the guys/gals that always dismiss anybody who dares to seek justice as a 'crank' having a 'whinge about good guys and bad guys'.:mad:

FF are going to remain quiet. They won't want to displease their Anglo buddies.

tayto lover

While all this was going on FF were quiet and maybe complicit. The regulator was asleep. The opposition FG/Lab were silent and not asking any questions.

There are no politicians who are innocent in this sorry saga.
BUT as always the taxpayer will cover it all as will their children and grandchildren.

Callan57

God but we're some country all right ... finally proof of what the majority of rational people knew all along but will anything be done about it? :rolleyes:

Lord no but we'll go marching over a fertilised egg but throw the hands in the air and do feck all about those who deliberately and knowingly destroyed the lives and aspirations of probably 90-95% of the population.

And the so-called AUDITORS are still keeping the heads well down :mad:

AlekSmart

Sand wrote: »

Additionally - I thought they made a telling point when they noted that if the Central Bank realised how big the hole in the balance sheet was, and how big the cost to the taxpayer would be ultimately that the Central Bank might realise that they had other options. Given the cries of "TINA! TINA!" that surrounds the September guarantee its interesting that even these guys realised that the Irish state and taxpayer had options.

Thankfully for them we had a couple of clowns in Lenihan and Cowen making the calls. I cant for the life of me see Gilmore or Kenny making a better decision though.

The recordings do raise some questions which only oul Paddy Neary can answer,such as what EXACTLY his daily duties were ?

From listening to the Anglo bucks,he was seen as some sort of dumbo,surely he needs to get his version out there now ?

Light Touch regulation need not be all bad,but NO touch regulation is a certain invitation to the likes of Drummer & Co to pull stuff out of their arses sure enough....:mad:

RichardAnd

Slideshowbob wrote: »

How did the Irish Independent get their hands on them?

I found myself asking the same question earlier. I then asked myself why these tapes exist at all. The conversation probably took place over mobile phones and if that's the case, why was it recorded? Are all phone conversations recorded somewhere? I doubt it...

I'm not trying to defend anyone in Anglo at all but I would really like to see answers to the above two questions.

tayto lover

RichardAnd wrote: »

I found myself asking the same question earlier. I then asked myself why these tapes exist at all. The conversation probably took place over mobile phones and if that's the case, why was it recorded? Are all phone conversations recorded somewhere? I doubt it...

I'm not trying to defend anyone in Anglo at all but I would really like to see answers to the above two questions.

Someone on RTE said that these tapes are used for training purposes. Many institutions tape calls and anyone ringing the bank or institution is told that the call is being taped for training purposes. Apparently there are hundreds of hours of tape available.
Don't know how the newspapers got them though. Disgruntled staff member?

Callan57

AlekSmart wrote: »

The recordings do raise some questions which only oul Paddy Neary can answer,such as what EXACTLY his daily duties were ?

From listening to the Anglo bucks,he was seen as some sort of dumbo,surely he needs to get his version out there now ?

Light Touch regulation need not be all bad,but NO touch regulation is a certain invitation to the likes of Drummer & Co to pull stuff out of their arses sure enough....:mad:

Now why would he need to say a dickiebird ... sitting tight & smug on his inflated state pension? :eek:

Mr.Micro

AlekSmart wrote: »

The recordings do raise some questions which only oul Paddy Neary can answer,such as what EXACTLY his daily duties were ?

From listening to the Anglo bucks,he was seen as some sort of dumbo,surely he needs to get his version out there now ?

Light Touch regulation need not be all bad,but NO touch regulation is a certain invitation to the likes of Drummer & Co to pull stuff out of their arses sure enough....:mad:

This is the same guy who came on the Primetime programme in 2008 when the s*** had just hit the fan, and he went on and on that the banks had plenty of liquidity and he had confidence in the financial institutions.

I doubt if he has any version of any story that would do him any good. An utter buf**n who knew nothing and cared less it appears.

Mr.Micro

Callan57 wrote: »

Now why would he need to say a dickiebird ... sitting tight & smug on his inflated state pension? :eek:

and probably shameless like the rest of them, who orchestrated by design and incompetence to bring down our economy.

mada999

tayto lover wrote: »

While all this was going on FF were quiet and maybe complicit. The regulator was asleep. The opposition FG/Lab were silent and not asking any questions.

There are no politicians who are innocent in this sorry saga.
BUT as always the taxpayer will cover it all as will their children and grandchildren.

could it be that FG and LAB boyos were silent as they knew they would get into power after all the mess ? Could they really be that bad and not give a damn about the country just there own interests?

strandroad

RichardAnd wrote: »

I found myself asking the same question earlier. I then asked myself why these tapes exist at all. The conversation probably took place over mobile phones and if that's the case, why was it recorded? Are all phone conversations recorded somewhere? I doubt it...

I'm not trying to defend anyone in Anglo at all but I would really like to see answers to the above two questions.

The audio recordings are from the bank's own internal telephone system and date from the heart of the financial crisis that brought the State to its knees in September 2008.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/inside-anglo-the-secret-recordings-29366837.html

Rightwing

tayto lover wrote: »

While all this was going on FF were quiet and maybe complicit. The regulator was asleep. The opposition FG/Lab were silent and not asking any questions.

There are no politicians who are innocent in this sorry saga.
BUT as always the taxpayer will cover it all as will their children and grandchildren.

I wonder was the regulator asleep?

Or was he told by Bertie & co. 'téigh a chodladh'

He did get a nice pay off anyway, that's the main thing for these boys.

Scofflaw

Rightwing wrote: »

I wonder was the regulator asleep?

Or was he told by Bertie & co. 'téigh a chodladh'

He did get a nice pay off anyway, that's the main thing for these boys.

Asleep doesn't quite cover the actions of the office under Neary's tenure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Regulator

cordially,
Scofflaw

Idbatterim

this may be a naive question, but when they knew how totally f***ed the situation was, should they not have come clean to Brian Lenihan, the central bank or whoever was relevant? I.e honesty is the best policy approach?! I cant believe they knew the tax payer would likely pick up the tab for insane amounts of money and have no guilty conscience in doing it!!!!

raymon

Idbatterim wrote: »

this may be a naive question, but when they knew how totally f***ed the situation was, should they not have come clean to Brian Lenihan, the central bank or whoever was relevant? I.e honesty is the best policy approach?! I cant believe they knew the tax payer would likely pick up the tab for insane amounts of money and have no guilty conscience in doing it!!!!

Who says they didn't tell Lenihan ??

Lenihan and the rest of FF must have been aware of the treachery FF were entering into.

Good loser

washman3 wrote: »

The usual FF/FG/LAB apologists seem strangely absent from Boards.ie this evening. These are the guys/gals that always dismiss anybody who dares to seek justice as a 'crank' having a 'whinge about good guys and bad guys'.:mad:

Here I am. You must always allow for the possibility that you are one of the 'bad' guys.

Whereas you seem to have a cast iron 100% certainty that you are not.
And that your radar can unerringly detect one from the other.
Remember the Pharasee and the Publican 'n all that.

Re the tapes they're interesting (and funny too) but, as Scofflaw states in post 19, probably nothing illegal or actionable there. Personally I would be amazed if conversations of this nature had not taken place at the time - in the upper echelons of the Bank. And it was only a conversation.

To me the heart of the matter is that the Regulator and his staff (that is State workers) were extraordinarily incompetent and gullible over many years.

Grudaire

I don't see how it is possible that they did not do anything that is illegal. I know that the investigation is probably frantically attempting to find something that they can prosecute using, but I just don't see how this doesn't break some sort of rules...


... at the very least it's immoral, and in true nationalistic fashion I would have to suggest the reintroduction of the old Irish tradition of boycotting..

I hope it is finally clear to those who supported the bank bailout that it was the wrong move.

raymon

Good loser wrote: »

Re the tapes they're interesting (and funny too)

.............

To me the heart of the matter is that the Regulator and his staff (that is State workers) were extraordinarily incompetent and gullible over many years.

That pretty much sums up the Fianna Fail / Anglo attitude to the whole thing , what fun and laughs Fianna Fail and Anglo must have had during the process.

They both got one over on the regulator and the Irish citizen in a most comedic fashion. What hillarity indeed. Bravo.

Call me Al

There are more tapes to come apparently.


Laughs indeed....

Crimson King

raymon wrote: »

Who says they didn't tell Lenihan ??

Lenihan and the rest of FF must have been aware of the treachery FF were entering into.

Careful now, the man is dead and so anyone criticising him publicly will be seen to be a great reason to derail the thread insensitive and be attacked themselves.

maninasia

The possibility of insider or covert trading on these conversations should also be investigated.

heybaby

These tapes tell us nothing that we don't already know. The contempt and ineptitude of the regulator, the banks and the body politic were there for all to see years ago and is still very much there.
Read Simon Carswell's book on Anglo or Shane Ross's Bankers and you get page after page of testosterone filled bank executives throwing around billions of other people's euros with the entitlement of a Russian oligarch.
The tapes merely put a voice on the darkest of times but should not infuriate because of the cavalier attitude in evidence, but because these guys are free to go about their business 5 years on. I'm more annoyed with Kenny who has taken such a softly softly approach regarding an official banking inquiry and current banking controls. Consider kbc bank offering 90% mortgages in recent days and both Bank of Ireland and Aib raising customers' fees, all of this proves the banks have all the power .

Slideshowbob

mhge wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/inside-anglo-the-secret-recordings-29366837.html

Still doesn't tell us how Indo got em tho?

From Gardaí, staff, IT people?

and it's drip drip sensationalism til then.

Next we'll be hearing Seanie Fitz tell the missus he's constipated some morning.

Let's face it if anyone went through all phone conversations I/we had over last 10 years would all be ok?

Is an ex-employee of a liquidated bank entitled to expect confidentiality and due process on data years later, granted the sensitivities involved here?

Callan57

I thought the Regulator, the Fraud Squad, Corporate Enforcement & old Tom Cobler were supposed to be investigating Anglo ... why did nobody think to impound these tapes for use as possible future evidence?

Manach

Purely for form's sake, I would counter-argue that as their privacy rights have been breach this makes a possible conviction unsafe and would be a grounds for appeal.