UPDATE 1-US SEC sanctions Direct Edge for weak controls
* Direct Edge settles without admitting or denying claimsBy Sarah N. LynchWASHINGTON, Oct 13 (Reuters) -U.S. securities regulators
sanctioned units of Direct Edge Holdings LLC on Thursday,
saying the stock exchange company’s weak internal controls led
to millions of dollars in trading losses and a systems outage.Direct Edge agreed to settle the Securities and Exchange
Commission’s administrative proceedings without admitting or
denying the agency’s findings. The exchange company also agreed
to correct the problems uncovered by regulators and the SEC
said many of the remedial measures are already underway.”Direct Edge understands and embraces the responsibilities
that come with being a registered national securities
exchange,” the company said in a statement.”Several months ago, we developed a comprehensive plan to
ensure the fulfillment of our obligations in a sustainable,
repeatable and demonstrable way. We have vigorously executed on
this plan, with significant investments made to enhance our
technology, personnel and processes.”Direct Edge is the fourth largest stock exchange in the
United States, behind NYSE Euronext , Nasdaq OMX NDAQ.O
and BATS Exchange.The SEC’s sanction specifically targeted Direct Edge’s EDGA
Exchange Inc, EDGX Exchange Inc and its affiliated routing
broker Direct Edge ECN LLC. All of them are based in Jersey
City, N.J.The SEC cited two incidents where it says Direct Edge
violated federal securities laws. In the first one, on Nov. 8,
2010, the agency claims untested computer codes left Direct
Edge’s two electronic exchanges to overfill orders. That led to
unwanted trades involving about 27 million shares in 1,000
stocks totaling roughly $773 million.Then, on April 13, 2011, an EDGX database administrator
accidentally disabled the database connections, which in turn
disrupted the exchange from processing incoming orders and
cancellations. That led to $668,000 in losses.The exchange is run by a consortium, including Citadel and
Goldman Sachs Group Inc .
UPDATE 1-Teekay, Marubeni JV to buy 8 LNG carriers from Maersk
* Financing secured through new loan facilitiesOct 12 (Reuters) - Teekay LNG Partners and Japanese
group Marubeni said they will jointly acquire ownership
interest in eight LNG carriers from Danish shipping group A.P.
Moller-Maersk in a deal valued at about $1.40
billion.Teekay LNG said the transaction was expected to add to its
distributable cash flow per unit.Teekay LNG said the joint venture has secured loan
facilities, which on a combined basis total about $1.12 billion,
to finance the deal. The remaining $280 million was expected to
be financed with equity contributions from Teekay and Marubeni.Teekay’s equity contribution was expected to be about $146
million. It will take over technical management of the acquired
vessels after a transition period.
Ex-reporter claims hacking at Trinity Mirror paper-Sky
Trinity Mirror has said the allegation is incorrect. Brown’s comments came in a written witness statement
prepared for an employment tribunal claim for unfair dismissal
against Trinity Mirror, but the statement was never used. Sky is part owned by Murdoch’s News Corp media empire. “A number of the methods used to pry into individuals’ lives
were illegal and I have little doubt that if these people knew
they had been spied upon, they would take legal action for
breach of their right to privacy,” Brown was reported to have
written. The people whose phones were hacked by the Sunday newspaper,
Sky said, included David Beckham’s children’s nanny and TV
presenter Ulrika Jonsson. Trinity Mirror, which also owns the Mirror newspaper, denied
the accusations. “All our journalists work within the criminal law and the
PCC (Press Complaints Commission) Code of Conduct and we have
seen no evidence to suggest otherwise,” it said in a statement. It added that the “unsubstantiated allegations” taken from a
draft statement had never been tested under cross examination. Brown declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. He was reported to have written that information had been
gleaned by others from Jonsson’s mobile phone. “This was done by ‘screwing’ or tapping Ms Jonsson’s phone’s
message bank,” he is said to have written. He said in the statement that Trinity Mirror had quickly
paid substantial damages to Beckham after running a front-page
story wrongly alleging the soccer star had left angry messages
on his nanny’s mobile. “It took the company less than a month to pay David Beckham
substantial damages because it knew it could not produce the
evidence of tapped mobile phones in any litigation,” the
statement reportedly said. Brown was fired from the Sunday tabloid in April 2006 for
gross misconduct, Sky said on its website. The statement, written in 2007, was not used because the
company settled out of court with Brown and he signed a
confidential settlement agreement, Sky said. When a News of the World reporter was arrested for hacking
in August 2006, a senior human resources figure “contacted
executives on Trinity’s national titles to tell them that if
they were asked by other newspapers or trade publications
whether they had used information from ‘screwed’ mobile phones
they should deny it,” Brown was said to have written. “(The) advice indicates that a major media plc was not only
allowing its staff to carry out illegal activity by, at best,
turning a blind eye to it, but also taking part in an organised
cover-up of that activity.” Trinity launched a review of is editorial controls and
procedures last August, and had obtained written confirmation
from its current senior editorial executives that they had not
engaged in phone-hacking since the introduction of an Act of law
in 2000. Allegations of hacking at its rival Sunday tabloid the News
of the World led to the closure of the 168-year publication.
Trinity Mirror soon afterwards said its circulation revenues had
risen.
