-- Published: Tuesday, 18 December 2018 | Print | Disqus
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Are gold and silver mining companies joining the class-action lawsuits being filed against investment bank JPMorganChase because of the confession by a former futures trader for the bank who has pleaded guilty to manipulating the monetary metals markets?:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/13/jp-morgan-faces-lawsuits-after-guilty-pl...
While gold and silver mining investors are asking that question, GATA has seen no evidence that their companies are joining the lawsuits against JPMorganCase.
Of course few gold and silver mining companies have ever expressed interest in the market manipulation issue to begin with, even though GATA has been documenting manipulation for 20 years and two years ago another investment bank, Deutschebank, settled similar gold and silver market rigging lawsuits by offering $100 million in damage payments and providing evidence against other market riggers:
http://www.gata.org/node/16380
It's not clear whether gold and silver mining companies would qualify as participants in the lawsuits. Such lawsuits have been construed to be open only to those who traded gold and silver futures contracts during specified periods. But gold and silver mining companies, especially producing companies, sometimes trade futures to hedge their production and other financial obligations, so they might qualify.
Still, gold and silver mining companies might be too scared to join the lawsuits, since, while they are silent on market manipulation, they may know about it and understand a few things only too well:
-- That suppression of monetary metals prices is actually longstanding government policy and that governments are the underlying parties in interest.
-- That governments have total control over the mining business through issuance of mining permits, enforcement of environmental regulations, and royalty requirements.
-- That governments might not take kindly to mining companies that questioned government policy so sharply.
-- That mining is the most capital-intensive business and as such cannot operate without financing from the biggest investment banks, like JPMorganChase, and that those banks are formally agents of governments in implementing government policy in the markets.
Indeed, many gold and silver mining companies have used JPMorganChase for financial services even as the bank's futures trading now has been shown to have been rigging the prices of the gold and silver mining industry's product.
Nevertheless, investors in gold and silver mining companies might do well to press their companies for comment on the class-action lawsuits against JPMorganChase and Deustchebank, about gold and silver market rigging generally, and about whether the miners should start supporting GATA in pursuit of free and transparent markets in the monetary metals.
At least their timidity has gotten the gold and silver miners nowhere.
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org
* * *
Help keep GATA going
GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:
http://www.gata.org
To contribute to GATA, please visit:
http://www.gata.org/node/16
| Digg This Article
-- Published: Tuesday, 18 December 2018 | E-Mail | Print | Source: GoldSeek.com
