C OV ER S T OR I ES
B2 Thursday, April 22, 2010 • THE BULLETIN
Goldman execs to testify before Senate panel The government’s case against Goldman Sachs is about to get its first public airing, in what could be a dramatic preview of the legal battle to come. On Tuesday, the Goldman Sachs trader accused of fraud by federal regulators, Fabrice Tourre, and at least three of the bank’s top executives will testify before a Senate panel to defend the firm’s business activities and reputation, people briefed on the proceedings said Wednesday. The Goldman executives agreeing to appear before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations include the firm’s finance chief, David Viniar, and its chief risk officer, Craig Broderick, the people briefed on the matter said. They will join their chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, whose plan to appear was already widely known. Several senior managers in Goldman’s mortgage unit, which is at the center of the government’s civil case, have also agreed to testify, these people said. That Goldman is sending so many of its employees to testify before the panel underscores the lengths to which it will go to restore its tarnished image and de-
clining share price. Their testimony will put a spotlight on a case that has already become a subject of political acrimony. On Tuesday, Republican members of the House oversight committee released a statement accusing the Securities and Exchange Commission of political motivations in its pursuit of a case against Goldman. They suggested that the action was timed to coincide with the Democrats’ effort to pass new financial regulations, and they demanded information about any coordination the agency might have had with the White House to affect the timing of the suit. The commission’s chairwoman, Mary Schapiro, issued a response on Wednesday stating: “The SEC is an independent law enforcement agency. We do not coordinate our enforcement actions with the White House, Congress or political committees. We do not time our cases around political events or the legislative calendar.” President Barack Obama also addressed charges of collusion in an appearance on CNBC on Wednesday. The SEC, he said, “never discussed with us anything with respect to the charges that will be brought.”
Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg News
Complete with advanced technology to combat counterfeiting, the new design for the $100 bill retains the traditional look of U.S. currency.
New C-note unveiled By Ed O’Keefe The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Over at the Treasury Department, it’s all about the Benjamins. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke unveiled the new design for the $100 bills that feature Benjamin Franklin’s mug. The new bills include additional security features designed to weed out counterfeit notes. The new design includes a 3-D security ribbon that contains images of bells and 100s that move and change from one to the other as handlers tilt the
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Continued from B1 The Trunk Club is now based in Chicago. Company CEO Brian Spaly said in a statement e-mailed to The Bulletin that the company is “privileged to be moving forward with new, experienced leadership and a capital investment that will strengthen the company. We believe that the market for personalized apparel shopping is large and unmet, and that Trunk Club will revolutionize and lead this rapidly growing segment.” The suits were filed by Timothy Lynch, a private investor; Anthos Capital, a San Mateo, Calif.-based private equity fund; and The Trunk Club Inc., the successor company to the limited liability company. In its suit, Anthos Capital says Van Vleck committed securities fraud by misrepresenting the company’s existing ownership when she was soliciting investment capital and also misstated the company’s financial health. Anthos’ suit says Van Vleck inflated revenues by treating business loans as income and not liabilities, and also failed to disclose total liabilities of more than $220,000. Anthos invested $750,000 in The Trunk Club Inc., in November 2009. The firm now alleges its investment is worthless, and is seeking damages for the same amount. Messages left at Anthos’ office were not returned. Bend-based attorney Ed Merrill, who filed all three suits on behalf of the plaintiffs, said he cannot comment on the suits. The suit brought by The Trunk Club Inc., the successor company, also alleges Van Vleck committed fraud and breach of fiduciary duty and asks the court to order Van Vleck to cease professing any affiliation with the company and to turn over ownership of the company’s Internet domain names. Lynch’s suit says he is out $50,000 after investing in the company, believing his stock purchase would have made him a 10 percent owner in the company. The suit alleges that because Van Vleck did not disclose all of the company’s liabilities and inflated its financial health, the company needs to be recapitalized, essentially making his shares worthless.
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So strong was the anti-business sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers took no money from corporations and held teach-ins “to challenge corporate and government leaders.” Forty years later, the day has turned into a premiere marketing platform for selling everything from office products to Greek yogurt to eco-dentistry. For this year’s celebration, Bahama Umbrella is touting its specially designed umbrella, with a drain so that water “can be stored, reused and recycled.” Gray Line, a New York City sightseeing company, will keep running its buses on fossil fuels. But the company is promoting an “Earth Week” package of day trips to green spots like the botanical gardens and flower shopping at Chelsea Market. FAO Schwarz is taking advantage of Earth Day to showcase Peat the Penguin, an emeraldtinted plush toy that, as part of the Greenzys line, is made of soy fibers and teaches green lessons to children. The penguin, Greenzys promotional material notes, “is an ardent supporter of recycling, reusing and reducing waste.” To many pioneers of the environmental movement, eco-consumerism, creeping for decades, is intensely frustrating and detracts from Earth Day’s original
purpose. “This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green,” said Denis Hayes, who was national coordinator of the first Earth Day and is returning to organize this year’s activities in Washington. “It is tragic.” In 1970, New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay addressed a crowd of tens of thousands in Union Square on Earth Day, in an atmosphere The New York Times likened to a “secular revival meeting.” This year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will be in Times Square to announce measures to reduce New York’s impact on the environment. Using the same stage, Keep America Beautiful, an anti-littering nonprofit organization, will introduce “dream machines,” recycling kiosks they are rolling out with PepsiCo. The machines are meant to increase the recycling rates for beverage containers, which currently is estimated at about 36 percent nationwide. The irony, of course, is that a fair portion of the more than 200 billion beverage containers produced in the United States each year are filled with PepsiCo products like Mountain Dew and Aquafina; such bottle trash contributes to serious pollution on beaches, oceans and inland waterways.
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opponents of genetically modified foods, who say the latest technology may taint conventional corn supplies and allow large companies to perpetuate an industrial agricultural system that harms water resources. “Their approach is that the market system of expansion we have is just fine and we can use technology to adapt to any problems and make money at the same time,” Maude Barlow, chairwoman of Food and Water Watch, said in e-mailed responses to questions. “We are also very concerned about the possibility of this genetically engineered corn contaminating the stock.” The technology will expand the U.S. corn-growing region westward while helping the country’s farmers cut their irrigation bill, said Kevin Dhuyvetter, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University. The trait may reduce farmers’ insurance premiums and ultimately boost land values in water-starved regions of Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma, he said. “If we can apply 2 inches less water, that would be a huge benefit because the groundwater supplies are always diminishing,” Dhuyvetter said.
BIRDBATHS
Once an anti-corporate occasion, Earth Day has turned into big business
trait retails on average for $18 an acre, according to Ludwigshafen, Germany-based Germany BASF, the world’s largest chemicals company. “All players expect blockbuster potential,” said Patrick Rafaisz, an analyst at Bank Vontobel AG. The global market for drought-tolerant corn may reach 150 million acres, DuPont said in a February presentation, without providing a timeframe. That implies a market of $2.7 billion, based on BASF’s $18per-acre projection. In comparison, global sales of all seeds in 2008 were $26 billion, including $9 billion of corn, Edinburghbased industry consultant Phillips McDougall said in a December report. Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of global fresh-water use, Monsanto Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant said. Reducing irrigation not only contributes to more sustainable farming, it’s a “game changer” that will boost profits and help feed a rising world population, he said. “The biggest single issue in farming going forward is water, use of water, water availability in many parts of the world, so I think it will be a significant product,” Grant said. Monsanto also is engineering crop seeds including cotton, wheat and sugar cane for drought tolerance, and the company and BASF are donating drought-resistant corn technologies to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa through the African Agricultural Technology Foundation in Nairobi. The prospect of drought-resistant seeds isn’t winning over
Treasury Department, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Secret Service. Less than a hundredth of 1 percent of all U.S. currency is counterfeit, but the $100 note is the most widely circulated and most frequently counterfeited outside the U.S., the Treasury said. The Treasury will start issuing the bills Feb. 10, 2011. The older bills will still work and will eventually be cycled out of the market, Bernanke said. The new bills will also feature the signature of U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, who was recently profiled by the Federal Eye.
POTTERY
Todd Heisler / New York Times News Service
FAO Schwarz displays emerald-tinted Greenzys, a line of toys that are made of soy fibers and teach environmental lessons to children.
Continued from B1 Perhaps most importantly for farmers, corn yields may climb. DuPont says seed being tested on 5,000 acres this year is expected to boost yields in dry environments by at least 6 percent. Syngenta is targeting yield increases of at least 10 percent for its corn. Both companies used conventional breeding to develop the seeds for sale next year, with biotech versions due later in the decade. The seeds will be a “big market” for Syngenta of Switzerland, Chief Executive Officer Michael Mack said. “Farmers around the world are going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to technology providers in order to have this feature.” Monsanto is moving directly to a biotech version that it says will increase corn yields 6 percent to 10 percent. The company’s seed, developed with BASF SE, may be put on sale in 2012 and become the first product genetically engineered to tolerate drought. The Monsanto-BASF partnership, created in 2007, aims to have its drought genetics in 55 million acres of U.S. corn by 2020. In comparison, Monsanto had at least one biotech trait in 82 percent of the nation’s 86.5 million acres of corn last year. Monsanto and BASF are also developing drought-resistant versions that can serve as insurance for growers who normally have adequate rainfall or access to irrigation. The seeds may generate annual sales of almost $1 billion assuming the
note. A new image of the Liberty Bell in the inkwell changes color from copper to green when the bill is tilted. It also features phrases from the Declaration of Independence and the quill used by the Founding Fathers to sign the document on the right hand side of the front of the bill. On the back, there’s a new image of the back of Independence Hall. Both that image and Franklin’s portrait have been enlarged, and designers dropped the oval around both images. The new design follows more than a decade of research and development by folks at the
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