28486993
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Diamondback Capital Management, a large US hedge fund managing billions of dollars of assets, has settled a groundbreaking FBI case around the alleged $62 million insider trading of Dell and Nvidia stock.
The hedge fund will immediately pay $9 million to authorities as part of the agreement, which was reached in a New York court, and will claim serious wrongful conduct by two senior former employees.
The alleged criminal operation, involving trades of Dell and Nvidia shares based on private company information, is being described by authorities as one of the largest ever insider trading rings, and involves former employees at several hedge funds, as well as at Dell.
Todd Newman, a senior manager at Diamondback, was arrested in Boston last week. Jesse Tortura, a former analyst at the company, was also implicated in the case by prosecutors. The two continue to face securities fraud charges.
Diamondback itself will no longer face prosecution. The company has agreed to sign an official statement detailing the "wrongful conduct" of two of its employees.
Other individuals facing charges include Anthony Chiasson, a co-founder at Level Global investors, Jon Horvath, an employee at Sigma Capital Management, and Danny Kuo of Whittier Trust. All three firms are large hedge funds.
Level Global allegedly made $57 million from a tip ahead of Dell's results, according to the FBI, which would be the largest single profit in history from insider information. None of the companies facing questions has commented.
Two former Dell employees — an unnamed employee in the company's investor relations department from 2007 to 2009, as well as Sandeep Goyal, who worked at its US headquarters between 2006 and 2007 — were also said to be part of the alleged scam.
Some 56 traders and associates have been convicted in the "Operation Perfect Hedge" investigation, of which this case is the largest known part. The investigation also included the high profile insider trading conviction of Galleon hedge fund co-founder Raj Rajaratnam – after he traded extensively in AMD, IBM, Intel and 3Com stock.
George Canellos, director of the SEC's New York office, said the authority believes the settlement by Diamondback "appropriately sanctions the misconduct" while demonstrating the company's assistance in the police investigation.
Diamondback, which was raided over a year ago by the FBI as part of the investigation, has not provided further comment. The other hedge funds continue to face questions.
Dell said in a statement that it "has cooperated with government authorities". It added: "All Dell employees are required annually to complete training on the company's Code of Conduct, which includes a section on insider trading. Violations of these policies are treated seriously, and violations result in disciplinary action up to and including termination."
28448507
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Dr Theodora Dallas, a 34-year old juror who researched a defendant on the internet and shared the information with fellow jurors during a UK trial, has been jailed for six months for contempt of court.
The decision raises serious questions over how online information and social media is governed among jurors. Journalists were recently allowed to use Twitter in court during Wikileaks boss Julian Assange's extradition hearings, and information on major cases is hard to avoid when using the internet or switching on the television.
Jurors are explicitly informed in court not to consult media reports or the internet in general around a case, until it is finished. But many do not understand the implications of doing so, or overlook some of the instructions at a later date.
Dallas, a psychology lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire, is Greek and has said her grasp of some technical English is not good. She told the judges she had "no intention" of influencing the jury, in the assault case in a Luton court last year.
"I did not understand that I could make no search on the internet," she said. "I really apologise. I never thought it would cause such disruption."
In July 2011, after Dallas was discovered to have researched the defendant on the internet, and shared the information with other jurors, the trial was stopped.
She is likely to serve three months in prison, but be on probation for the other six months, according to the High Court judge who issued the ruling.
Lord Judge, Lady Justice Hallett, said Dallas had "deliberately disobeyed" juror instructions. "Misuse of the internet by a juror is always a most serious irregularity and an effective custodial sentence is virtually inevitable."
28448479
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Dr Theodora Dallas, a 34-year old juror who researched a defendant on the internet and shared the information with fellow jurors during a UK trial, has been jailed for six months for contempt of court.
The decision raises serious questions over how online information and social media is governed among jurors. Journalists were recently allowed to use Twitter in court during Wikileaks boss Julian Assange's extradition hearings, and information on major cases is hard to avoid when using the internet or switching on the television.
Jurors are explicitly informed in court not to consult media reports or the internet in general around a case, until it is finished. But many do not understand the implications of doing so, or overlook some of the instructions at a later date.
Dallas, a psychology lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire, is Greek and has said her grasp of some technical English is not good. She told the judges she had "no intention" of influencing the jury, in the assault case in a Luton court last year.
"I did not understand that I could make no search on the internet," she said. "I really apologise. I never thought it would cause such disruption."
In July 2011, after Dallas was discovered to have researched the defendant on the internet, and shared the information with other jurors, the trial was stopped.
She is likely to serve three months in prison, but be on probation for the other six months, according to the High Court judge who issued the ruling.
Lord Judge, Lady Justice Hallett, said Dallas had "deliberately disobeyed" juror instructions. "Misuse of the internet by a juror is always a most serious irregularity and an effective custodial sentence is virtually inevitable."
28443265
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
he London Stock Exchange (LSE) has dramatically slashed round trip latency times for proximity hosting, in collaboration with Colt, on its Novell SUSE Linux-based MillenniumIT matching engine.
The LSE said that as it hit a new speed milestone, it had also vastly expanded capacity and reliability for the system. UK traders using the service connect through Colt's state of the art data centre in Wapping.
Nigel Harold, head of business development technology at the LSE, told Computerworld UK: "We now have sub-100 microsecond latency on proximity hosting."
Traders who typically use a proximity hosting connection include those looking for a more managed service, whereby Colt handles their networking connections and bandwidth, and aims to ensure highly reliable uptime. Speed is highly important, but reliability and managed scalability are also vital attributes for these clients.
The speed compares to sub-30 microsecond latency cross connections on co-location, a setup in which trading firms place their kit within the stock exchange's datacentre. It is the preferred option of many of the high frequency trading firms, such as the LSE's largest client Nomura, for which speed is everything – and they have a large team of their own to manage the technology.
Harold said the proximity trading solution is preferred by those traders looking to have a powerful, fast, all-round service. "It's connectivity in-a-box. The key is to offer the managed route onto the exchange for those traders, handling scalability, reliability, capacity and functionality.
"There are all shapes and sizes of client, with diverse speed requirements, but what they have in common is the need for ease of use and reliability."
The LSE's MillenniumIT matching engine is based on Novell Suse Linux, and was developed in C++. It offers trading on the FIX and ITCH protocols. "We feel we've got the fast, reliable, secure system that the market needs," said Harold.
28443247
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has dramatically slashed round trip latency times for proximity hosting, in collaboration with Colt, on its Novell SUSE Linux-based MillenniumIT matching engine.
The LSE said that as it hit a new speed milestone, it had also vastly expanded capacity and reliability for the system. UK traders using the service connect through Colt's state of the art data centre in Wapping.
Nigel Harold, head of business development technology at the LSE, told Computerworld UK: "We now have sub-100 microsecond latency on proximity hosting."
Traders who typically use a proximity hosting connection include those looking for a more managed service, whereby Colt handles their networking connections and bandwidth, and aims to ensure highly reliable uptime. Speed is highly important, but reliability and managed scalability are also vital attributes for these clients.
The speed compares to sub-30 microsecond latency cross connections on co-location, a setup in which trading firms place their kit within the stock exchange's datacentre. It is the preferred option of many of the high frequency trading firms, such as the LSE's largest client Nomura, for which speed is everything – and they have a large team of their own to manage the technology.
Harold said the proximity trading solution is preferred by those traders looking to have a powerful, fast, all-round service. "It's connectivity in-a-box. The key is to offer the managed route onto the exchange for those traders, handling scalability, reliability, capacity and functionality.
"There are all shapes and sizes of client, with diverse speed requirements, but what they have in common is the need for ease of use and reliability."
The LSE's MillenniumIT matching engine is based on Novell Suse Linux, and was developed in C++. It offers trading on the FIX and ITCH protocols. "We feel we've got the fast, reliable, secure system that the market needs," said Harold.
28359330
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Two former Dell employees, including a former investor relations manager, were part of a $62 million record-breaking insider trading scam, involving the company's shares as well as Nvidia stock, according to the FBI.
The news comes as the US authorities step up their pursuit of inside traders. Two months ago, Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years in jail for his role in a scam involving AMD, IBM and 3Com stock.
Yesterday, Sandeep Goyal, an employee at Dell's US headquarters between 2006 and 2007 before becoming a financial analyst, was arrested. An unnamed co-conspirator in Dell's investor relations department from 2007 to 2009 is also alleged to have been part of the scam. The co-conspirator has not been arrested, it is understood.
Goyal allegedly made $175,000 by providing inside information about Dell to a hedge fund. He has pleaded guilty to charges of securities fraud.
Jesse Tortura, a former analyst at Diamondback, and Spyridon Adondakis, formerly at Level Global, have also pleaded guilty.
Seven men in total are allegedly implicated in the scam, including Todd Newman, a senior manager with the Diamondback Capital Management hedge fund, and Anthony Chiasson, a co-founder at Level Global investors. Newman oversaw IT stock investments at Diamondback. Chiasson's Level firm principally trades in IT and finance shares. Both were arrested yesterday.
Jon Horvath, an employee at hedge fund Sigma Capital Management, and Danny Kuo of Whittier Trust, were also allegedly part of the scam. Both hedge funds trade in a range of share types.
All seven were charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, relating to profits made from trading Dell and Nvidia stock in 2008 and 2009.
Authorities even produced an email from Kuo to Adondakis, Tortura and Horvath, in which he openly states that he is providing insider information.
In one instance of profit from the scam, Level Global allegedly made $57 million from a tip ahead of Dell's results – which authorities branded as the largest single profit ever from inside information.
Dell said in a statement that it "has cooperated with government authorities". It added: "All Dell employees are required annually to complete training on the company's Code of Conduct, which includes a section on insider trading. Violations of these policies are treated seriously, and violations result in disciplinary action up to and including termination."
FBI assistant director Janice Fedarcyk said: "The FBI has arrested more than 60 people in 'Operation Perfect Hedge' [the hedge fund insider trading probe] to date, and this initiative is far from over.
"If you are engaged in insider trading, what distinguishes you from the dozens who have been charged is not that you haven't been caught; it's that you haven't been caught yet."
28327260
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Unilever has built a private cloud computing setup for its key basic applications, using the new Microsoft System Center 2012 platform.
The consumer goods giant, which makes brands including PG Tips tea, Persil washing powder and Bertolli olive oil, contracted system integrator Avanade to implement the technology.
Unilever, which has in recent years taken aggressive steps to standardise systems, also plans to improve day-to-day processes and improve reliability with the System Center 2012. It was an early adopter of the system, which has been made publicly available this week.
Mike Royle, IT director at Unilever, said that the company is "betting" on the technology "as the management platform to extend our investments in virtualisation toward private cloud, to automate processes, and to ensure the reliability of our infrastructure and application services".
Unilever has a decade long, company-wide plan to double revenues while halving its impact on the environment. Royle said that the more effective cloud infrastructure would "help" with this, and Unilever is also overhauling supply chain systems with IBM as part of the green effort.
Meanwhile, the company continues to roll out standardised SAP enterprise resource planning worldwide as part of the One Unilever programme with Accenture, and is in the midst of a business intelligence upgrade with Capgemini, focused around SAP NetWeaver and Microsoft ProClarity analytics. Its other key outsourcers are BT for networks, and Unisys for IT management.
28109264
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Philipp Hildebrand, who resigned two days ago as chairman of the Swiss National Bank in the midst of an alleged insider trading storm, is facing up to conflicting accounts of events in a tranche of his private emails released by the bank.
The scandal concerns Hildebrand's alleged involvement in his wife's purchase of $500,000 US currency, only weeks before the Swiss National Bank capped the Swiss Franc. His wife later sold the currency back at a higher rate, making a substantial profit. If Hildebrand played any part in the actions, he would have broken the law.
Hildebrand has said he never encouraged or authorised such purchases, and only quit because he was unable to unequivocally prove his innocence. But his private financial adviser, Felix Scheuber, wrote in an email last year that Hildebrand had indicated clear approval for dollar transactions.
The emergence of the emails are reported to have played a key part in Hildebrand's departure, though the bank has not confirmed this officially.
In the emails, sent last August, Hildebrand wrote to his private financial adviser Felix Scheuber that he was "surprised" about the large US currency purchase by his wife, adding that the adviser was "not authorised" to execute any such transactions without his approval. He said that they had "never discussed" any such purchase, even though she had written that they both wanted to increase their "dollar exposure".
Scheuber replied, disputing Mr Hildebrand's comments. He added: "I also remember you saying in our yesterday's conversation [sic] that if [your wife] Kashya wants to increase the USD exposure then it is fine with you."
The bank said today that it was stepping up its governance arrangements, and looking for a new chairman.
28039056
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
US president Barack Obama has spoken of the drastically heightened cyber threat facing nations around the world, as he announced major changes to the American defence strategy.
As he appeared at the Pentagon last week to unveil the new defence strategy, Obama promised to focus closely on improving the technological capabilities of the US armed forces. "We will ensure that our military is agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies," he said.
The US prioritisation of cyber security comes as Israel's deputy foreign minister compared a recent cyber-attack, in which credit card accounts were compromised, to a terrorist act.
The US, in its strategy, said it was stepping up spending on national cyber security, even though it is slashing the overall defence budget and the number of on-the-ground military personnel under the strategy. The cuts in personnel are aimed at achieving $450 billion (£290 billion) in Pentagon savings over the next decade.
The strategy document focused closely on the potentially severe online threats to America.
"Both state and non-state actors possess the capability and intent to conduct cyber espionage and, potentially, cyber attacks on the United States, with possible severe effects on both our military operations and our homeland," said the Sustaining Global Leadership document.
In the document, the Department of Defense warned that "sophisticated adversaries" will use "asymmetric capabilities, to include electronic and cyber warfare, ballistic and cruise missiles, advanced air defenses, mining, and other methods, to complicate our operational calculus".
"Our planning envisages forces that are able to fully deny a capable state's aggressive objectives in one region by conducting a combined arms campaign across all domains – land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace."
27921134
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has been fined £1.4 million ($2.2 million) by regulators, after it signed off accounts containing serious rule-breaking client money practices at JP Morgan Chase – the result of a major IT switchover that failed to keep pace with changed business processes.
The Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board (AADB) issued the fine as it ruled that PwC wrongly reported over a seven year period that JP Morgan had maintained the right systems to correctly separate clients' money from its own.
The "highly automated" systems processed up to £15 billion of assets, and by not separating the money appropriately, there was a risk of clients' losing their assets if JP Morgan had gone bust, the regulator stated.
In 2010, JP Morgan Chase was fined £33.3 million over the issue by the Financial Services Authority, prompting this investigation of PwC's auditing.
The AADB ruled today that PwC had failed to obtain evidence that JP Morgan had the right systems in place, but nevertheless signed off the accounts.
The regulator described the breach and the value of money at risk as "very serious".
27886880
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Bristol-Myers Squibb has extended a major network services deal with BT, geared around a standardisation programme, until 2017.
The deal covers wide and local area network services, remote access, voice and telephony, as well as compliance management and security for all of the company's global locations.
The American firm, which employs approximately 28,000 people globally, has its UK headquarters in Uxbridge, Middlesex. Its key pharmaceutical products are based around cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hepatitis and arthritis.
Bristol-Myers Squibb aims to create a more standardised network infrastructure as part of the deal, as well as to improve collaboration between staff. The company will be able to meet the "stringent compliance requirements" of the pharmaceutical industry, BT said.
Rick Yborra, vice president of network and hosting at Bristol-Myers Squibb, added that it was important that BT had the "ability to flex" with the pharmaceutical firm's changes over time.
When the initial deal was signed in 2005, BT hailed it as major expansion for its global services business outside the US.
Two of its largest other deals include a global networking contract with Thomson Reuters, and a patient records deal in the UK with the officially 'cancelled' NHS National Programme for IT. Severe problems on some stages of both of those deals are understood to have contributed to BT Global Services profit warnings in recent years.
27885842
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Bristol-Myers Squibb has extended a major network services deal with BT, geared around a standardisation programme, until 2017.
The deal covers wide and local area network services, remote access, voice and telephony, as well as compliance management and security – for all of the company's global locations.
The American firm, which employs approximately 28,000 people globally, has its UK headquarters in Uxbridge, Middlesex. Its key pharmaceutical products are based around cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hepatitis and arthritis.
Bristol-Myers Squibb aims to create a more standardised network infrastructure as part of the deal, as well as to improve collaboration between staff. The company will be able to meet the "stringent compliance requirements" of the pharmaceutical industry, BT said.
Rick Yborra, vice president of network and hosting at Bristol-Myers Squibb, added that it was important that BT had the "ability to flex" with the pharmaceutical firm's changes over time.
When the initial deal was signed in 2005, BT hailed it as major expansion for its global services business outside the US.
Two of its largest other deals include a global networking contract with Thomson Reuters, and a patient records deal in the UK with the officially 'cancelled' NHS National Programme for IT. Severe problems on some stages of both of those deals are understood to have contributed to BT Global Services profit warnings in recent years.
27365978
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
2011 was a year of huge IT news. JP Morgan rolled out a game-changing real time risk analysis system, UK Chancellor George Osborne attempted to boost the economy with a raft of technology initiatives, and Jaguar recalled 18,000 cars after it found out a severe risk with its cruise control software.
We've hand picked these and the other best stories of the year.
27297500
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
The Chancellor's acceptance yesterday of the Vickers Report, which recommended banks separate their retail and investment units in the interests of stability, will require billions of pounds of IT and operational investment from banks.
The move will create thousands of IT jobs, as banks strive to bring about a complex technology separation. But financial IT experts warned that there will not be a jobs boom for at least the next four years.
"The interesting question is the timeline that banks will be willing to commit to. The legislation will not be fully drafted until 2015, with implementation by 2019. It would not be surprising to see an extended planning period of analysis and design before industrial strength implementation begins," said Laurie Boyall, chief executive at financial recruitment firm McGregor-Boyall.
"Much could happen politically, economically and financially during this period," he added. But if the work does happen, he said, the projects will be "gigantic" and require "extremely large amounts of resource".
Chris Skinner, chief executive at financial think-tank Balatro, agreed that the IT planning stage could be complex and drawn out before any changes are effected.
"In a number of banks it'll be a very fine line between what technology serves the investment bank and what serves retail," he said. "With Barclays, for example, it seems that Barclays Capital would be separated with a clearer line from Barclays retail bank, but with banks such as RBS – where the investment arm is more a complement to the main retail bank, with some crossover – it's especially tricky."
27294296
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
The rise of the "app internet" – in which users' PCs, smartphones and tablets run the business applications – will drive completely different demands from technology next year.
That is the verdict of technology industry experts, who predicted fast-shifting pressures on technology from the rise in mobile application development, cloud computing and new security threats.
According to Forrester analysts, having said that the web, as the dominant software architecture of the Internet, was dead, a new internet is evolving – dominated by applications and now placing a strain on the technology supporting it.
"The app internet ushers in the next generation of computing," Forrester said. The high "momentum" of personal devices growth was vastly changing mobile platform strategies.
In order to cope with the change, it said, "elastic application platforms" would emerge "to handle variable scale and portfolio balancing". Businesses would also increasingly push for private clouds, aided by "improved virtualisation", it said.
It added that "always on, always available" was "the new expectation" from business leaders, and networks needed to evolve to meet this.
Gartner said that "low cost cloud services" would begin a fast growth, forming "up to 15 per cent of top outsourcing players' revenue" within three years. These industrialised services would "alter the common perceptions of pricing and value of IT", it said.
Cloud services will top $36 billion (£23 billion) in 2012, IDC said, "growing at four times the industry rate".
"Eighty percent of new apps will target the cloud," it said, with Amazon "joining the $1 billion vendor club" and duelling with Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce.com and VMware.
In spite of frequent gloomy predictions by financial analysts for the world economy, IDC said there would be a 6.9 percent growth in IT spending in 2012, "turbo-charged" by mobile devices. But analysts warned of the Thailand floods' continued severe impact on the PC supply chain, and they said some production could shift to the Americas.
The battle to lead the IT marketplace will "start to be won and lost" next year, with Amazon's Kindle Fire taking 20 percent of media tablets, and growing Android momentum taking on the mobile OS field.
It would be a "make or break" year for Microsoft, RIM and HP in mobile devices, with the vendors respectively depending upon the success of Windows 8, BBX and tablets, IDC said.
Analyst firm CCS Insight predicted that RIM would restructure its business "into two divisions: a services unit and a hardware unit". The aim of this would be "to provide sharper focus on the two most important elements of RIM's business", it said....
