Saturday 22 November 2014

In pursuit of financial capital gain racial reconciliation in New Zealand is being hindered by suppressed truths by elements on both sides of the process.


In pursuit of financial capital gain the racial reconciliation process in New Zealand is being hindered by truths being suppressed by elements on both sides of the process.

I think some of the 'common folk' of every ethnicity within New Zealand are beginning to realise that we are all now suffering at the hands of the same types of people, what the first nations Maori peoples have suffered, by the same methods of deception.

Commercial contract law written by the so-called 'trusted professions' has undermined common law.

The slave master minded elites of European high finance, along with a few locally recruited Maori that they have cut in on the deal, have massively disproportionately benefited from their behind the scenes control of parliament's since 1852.

They have used their influence to commit a financial system pyramid control fraud against the common peoples of New Zealand.

The few among Maori that have been cut in on the deals, in order to keep their personal financial gains flowing, have heavily promoted the Maori romantic warrior myth, that Maori were gods gift to each other and the environment before the 'Pakeha' turned up and ruined the party.

As long as this continues any racial reconciliation in fact will be almost impossible, as the children of every ethnicity in New Zealand are going to grow up with opinions formed from a misleading basis.

In its current form, with its current predominant influences, the New Zealand government more conspires to have its people exploited for the benefit of foreign-financial-free-raiders and a few local mercenaries co-operating in full knowledge with them, than for the equal economic opportunity of as many of the locals as physically possible.

If asked to summarise in short New Zealand history since the first point of continuous European contact 1769, I would say that the lower socioeconomic Maori tribes who were suffering economic exploitation at the hands of stronger slave master minded Maori, and an increasingly lawless bunch of early European mercantile exploiters, in 1840 signed an agreement called the Treaty of Waitangi, of which the slave master tribes did not sign.

The lower socioeconomic tribes did so in an attempt to bring in a new governance model from Europe, after having heard of the European peasant revolutions out of which evolved the concept of a representative house of parliament where the commoners got a say in a national assembly and slavery by chains was abolished in the British Empire in 1830.

They thought the European peasant tenant slaves had achieved equal economic opportunity freedom from their despotic slave masters.

But as many former peasant tenant European slaves fled to Aotearoa seeking to build a better way of life, they ended up alongside a Maoridom, both suffering a new kind of slavery by financial system pyramid control fraud.

As exposed in this 1764 historical incident with Benjamin Franklin, who was an elected public representative of the fledgling colonies, at the point of continuous European contact in what became known as the United States of America. Which was another nation to which many peasant tenants were fleeing to in hope of leaving behind the feudal caste class systems of Europe;

1764 – Benjamin Franklin is asked by officials of the Bank of England to explain the prosperity of the colonies in America. He replies,

“That is simple. In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay no one.”

As a result of Franklin’s statement, the British Parliament hurriedly passed the Currency Act of 1764. This prohibited colonial officials from issuing their own money and ordered them to pay all future taxes in gold or silver coins.

This incident is a tiny part of a mountain of evidence that the sought after new governance model of equal economic opportunity from Europe, was far from a completely sealed deal in Europe itself.

With religious elements that were also very predominantly class system conservative, from those times unto this very day, it was decreed by the then appointed upper house of parliament that debt of private owned foreign lending institutions was to circulates as the entire currency supply of New Zealand's money system.

Which leaves New Zealand, as a whole, still suffering a fraudulent, divide and conquer, imperialist mercantile imbalanced system of commerce.

As long as the 1764 Currency Act that was later imposed upon many target nations, remains essentially intact in those nations, although the means of repayment has moved from gold or silver into other demands and the base from which the control fraud is run has been moved around, those nations suffering it remain not sovereign of their economics, not offering their people as equal economic opportunity as physically possible, but still a colony.

'He iwi tahi tatou' (We are all one people) was uttered at the signings of the Treaty of Waitangi, lets the commoners turn it into a truth and stuff up the plans of the criminal money elements.

To whom it may concern,
Attempting to form public policy for equal economic opportunity of all citizens without a full knowledge of the fundamentals of money as invented and intended - that this submission details - is doing so by looking at 1/3 of a many piece puzzle forced together in frustrated confusion - thinking its complete - when 2/3 of the picture needed in the middle to make clear sense of it all - is in-fact one large piece that has been hidden by a self serving few to steal from wider society under false pretences.
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/warmongering-british-colonial-heritage.html

Saturday 8 November 2014

No equity gain for the cost of shelter means greater than ever financial enslavement of common Kiwis at the hands of the foreign owned private central banking network mafia!

No equity gain for the cost of shelter will mean greater than ever financial enslavement of common Kiwis at the hands of the foreign owned private central banking network mafia!

If the New Zealand Parliament condones these recently announced all of loan term - interest payment only mortgages - of the private central banking network, it will be condoning an even higher level than it does now of the already massive outright criminal financial pyramid fraud that the citizens and businesses of honest enterprise of New Zealand presently suffer at the hands of foreign high finance institutions who can be traced back to being privately owned, in the main, by the family trusts of the worlds ultra-inter-generational-wealth-families of Europe and a few other bribed co-operatives they have cut in on their predatory lending pyramid fraud over centuries.

It does not take much scratching below the service to find out from official on the record documentation that when a New Zealand citizen enters a New Zealand based lending institution seeking to take out a loan, that under the British colonial private central banking system we still suffer, any loan approved can be traced back to a foreign private owned financial institution, that does not at that stage, as is often portrayed, possess the credit or need the hard earned saved deposits of existing currency, of a hard working existing customer, to be able to give a new customer an interest bearing loan, if the lending institution approves a new loan request.

What backs the new credit the private central banking network type into their accounts to then give you as an interest bearing loan, should they approve it, is the amount of the already developed or as yet undeveloped natural resource collateral of the nation that you are a citizen of that operates under this system, that you claim to be able to get access to.

Under present New Zealand money system structures, when all is said and done, the New Zealand based lending institutions makes a profit margin by organising loans within the nation at a higher rate of interest than they then refinance with the largest global lending institutions at the top of the global private central banking network wholesale credit pyramid.

It is little known that under the present New Zealand money system structures the entire currency circulating within the money system is originated as an interest bearing loan owed to a private lending institution and is extinguished at repayment of the principal and interest of the loan. Thus to maintain the present level of economic activity we must maintain the present level of private central banking network supplied interest charged loans or to grow the present level of economic activity we must grow the present level of private central banking network interest charged loans. Which I contest is absolutely crazy when you fully understand the role of credit and currency within a money system.

The interest charged upon the currency supplied by the private central banking network to then circulate as our means of exchange, is supposed to be a fair and reasonable fee for the private central banking network keeping in balance the senior most important balance sheet of economic activity authorised vs sustainable natural resources to support whats enabled, that is needed to be kept in balance for any money system to be able to complete the sustainability loop of currency in circulation being equal with present and future physically possible trade, that is needed to keep any money system from becoming a repeatingly-unsustainable-collapsing-ponzi-pyramid-control-fraud.

The repeated financial crisis over recent centuries within nations that have been under private central banking network control have come when the senior owners and greedy underlings have in the pursuit of selfish financial enrichment cooked the base accountancy of credit and currency issuance books without any due diligence what-so-ever in regards the natural balances and boundaries of population or sustainable natural resources. The perpetrators of the money system control fraud then use the purchasing power proceeds of their pyramid control fraud crimes to gain ownership of as much of the capital gain and rent seeking assets of the real economy as they then are able, with a view to then toll boothing wider society back to within an inch of slavery for a very undignified access to their very necessities of life. These all of term – interest payment only – housing or business loans will help consolidate the aims of the very sinister most senior elements of international high finance.

If this private central banking network ponzi pyramid control fraud, or any publicly administered money system that is abused in the same manner by a corrupt few, is allowed to continue unimpeded, the societies suffering it will end up like a small birds nest being used by too many birds to rare their chicks. The stronger ones will walk all over the weaker ones to steal a lions share of the areas available resources without even stopping to consider installing any drainage for the rising tide of excrement that they contribute the most to but for a short while suffer the least from, until the rising tide of excrement becomes so high that it drowns all in the nest in their own excrement before any can escape to freedom. If the cycle is repeated enough it will become a threat to the entire species.

If the human species can't use its ability to reason to learn to share the available resources more equitably within the balances and boundaries of population and sustainable resources it will collectively be in danger of drowning in its own excrement.

Westpac's new 30-year, interest-only mortgage has been decried as irresponsible and likely to fuel property investor speculation.

Details of the new loan product were discreetly fed to mortgage broker channels in recent weeks. The offering is a major shake-up to the market, with the term three to six times as long as the maximum allowed by rival banks.

Wellington mortgage broker Simon Rule said the three-decade loan had surprised brokers and rival lenders, and was "disappointing" to see.

"You're basically encouraging borrowers not to make any principal repayments on their mortgage whatsoever," he said.
End quote

For a wider historical context of the ever growing inequality of New Zealand's present money system structures please read this below;

Warmongering British Colonial Heritage Private Central Banking Empire.

Thursday 9 October 2014

New Zealand already under TPPA International Committee for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration tribunal that operates under the umbrella of the World Bank.

For my fellow citizens and businesses of honest enterprise you are being eaten alive by foreign financial ticket clipping middlemen.
The senior elements of banking empire cartel have control of New Zealand under conditions of receivership via its International Monetary Fund (IMF) receivership branch. It is backed up by an old boy's Commercial Contract Law network known as the International Committee for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) that operates under the umbrella of the World Bank.
The World Bank and IMF are conduit institutions that can be traced back to the senior most institutions of the British colonial era old boys private central banking network that are owned by the family trusts of the worlds ultra-inter-generational-wealth-families.
The World Bank gives out the predatory interest-bearing soft loans of counterfeit credit in excess of the productive natural resource capacity of the target nation to ever be able to repay.

Then when the mathematically inevitable bankruptcy receivership occurs the IMF is put in charge of bankruptcy receivership. Supposedly assisting you to trade your way out of your financial troubles.
However the former World Bank Vice President - Joseph E. Stiglitz - has stated that the IMF is the hospital that makes you sicker and quite clearly has ulterior motives than those that are publicly stated;
http://newint.org/features/2004/03/01/imf-failure/
Joseph E. Stiglitz - "I watched carefully what the IMF had done, the mistakes that it had made in crisis countries in East Asia, Latin America, Africa and the economies in transition. The mistakes were sufficiently frequent that they clearly weren’t just an accident – as an academic you look for patterns.
There were a couple of obvious explanations. One was that they were incompetent, stupid people. But that argument is just not persuasive – they pay among the highest wages, they get good people.
You could say it was bad economic models. But there is an array of economic models out there and they chose to use ones that led to wrong predictions, wrong policies and really negative consequences.
So why did they choose them? One is left with a possible answer that they had different objectives, that their objective in going into a country was not, for example, to keep employment as high as possible or to minimize poverty."
And then of course it all starts to make sense. You ask: ‘Who makes the decision, and on whose behalf do they make those decisions?’ You look at the decision-making structure – at the IMF the United States is the only country with a veto, other countries are represented by central bank governors and finance ministers. They were looking at the world with a particular perspective, a particular ideology that was in accord with their interests. And their interests were to make sure the creditors got paid. That took precedence over what would be good for the country.
End quote
By 1961 in New Zealand the predatory lending of counterfeit credit had run New Zealand into bankruptcy receivership. At which time it was put under IMF receivership Structural Adjustment Program that I would argue they have since traded New Zealand even deeper into financial trouble on purpose to force it to sell its public assets on the open market at fire-sale prices.
These procedures are enforced by international arbitration courts in which commercial contract law supersedes individual human rights common law.

Despite compelling evidence to the contrary there has since 1961 been contradicting denials and admissions by successive governments of New Zealand around the growing influence of the conduit institutions of external creditors over our nation.

The New Zealand Economy, A Personal view, book by Rob Muldoon 1985
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/rob-muldoon-new-zealand-prime-minister.html
Page 33-34;
page 52;
The fact that even in good years we did not show an overall surplus on our external current account and had to borrow and even draw from the IMF was also of concern, so that we were forced to move to restrain not just consumption, but capital development as well.
page 61;
It was in 1967 that, as a result of the wool slump, we borrowed into the higher tranches by way of drawings from the International Monetary Fund and gave the fund a controversial letter of intent. The semantics of a letter of intent as debatable then as they are today when the Fund has some 40 such arrangements. When the left wing politicians and academics claimed that the Fund had laid down conditions before permitting us to draw in the higher tranches, I insisted, as did the Fund, that it was up to the Government of the member country to indicate the policies that it would pursue in order to restore balance to its economy, while the Fund made its decision on whether or not to agree to the drawings in light of the policies that were proposed.
End quote

I sent this email to Minister of Finance Michael Cullen 4 September 2007 ;
Regards Dr Cullen,
1) I am seeking any information now eligible for release, regarding the secret Memorandums of understanding, or Structural adjustment programs imposed upon us by the IMF/World Bank during the restructuring of our(NZ) nations debts or what was essentially liquidation, in 1961 and 1984?
2) To your knowledge, the money used by registered bond traders, who are the only ones eligible to purchase the larger blocks of our govt bonds, all of whom are the private stakeholders of what is referred to as the "Central banking system", to your knowledge does this so-called "Power money" have any net tangible backing, or is it merely created as digital bits on a computer, then loaned into the system as interest-bearing debt, only given its value by the promised repayment out of the future taxes of the nation.?
Yours sincerely
Iain Parker
I received this reply from the Acting Minister of Finance Trevor Mallard 2 October 2007 ;
Dear Iain Parker
Thank you for your letter which was received on 5 September 2007 concerning an Official Information Act request. You requested:
1) I am seeking any information now eligible for release, regarding the secret Memorandums of understanding, or Structural adjustment programs imposed upon us by the IMF/World Bank during the restructuring of our(NZ) nations debts or what was essentially liquidation, in 1961 and 1984?
2) To your knowledge, the money used by registered bond traders, who are the only ones eligible to purchase the larger blocks of our govt bonds, all of whom are the private stakeholders of what is referred to as the "Central banking system", to your knowledge does this so-called "Power money" have any net tangible backing, or is it merely created as digital bits on a computer, then loaned into the system as interest-bearing debt, only given its value by the promised repayment out of the future taxes of the nation.?
New Zealand joined the IMF and the World Bank in 1961. There was no financial crisis in New Zealand at the time and New Zealand did not restructure its debt as a result of joining. There are no secret memoranda of understanding and no structural adjustment programmes were imposed on New Zealand. All the documents related to the decision to join the two institutions are publicly available from Archives New Zealand.
In June 1984, New Zealand drew down its Reserve Tranche at the IMF. The Reserve Tranche is essentially a country's foreign currency deposit with the IMF and can be drawn on at any time for balance of payments reasons without requiring approval from the IMF board. There is no conditionality attached to such a drawing and so no structural adjustment programme was imposed.
Once again, all relevant documents are publicly available at Archives New Zealand.
Accordingly, I have decided to refuse your request under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act 1982 - that the information you requested is or will soon be publicly available.
In response to your second question, registered bidders in New Zealand government Bond tenders purchase New Zealand government bonds using cash which they get from their shareholders, from profits on their operations or from borrowing against future income. Please note that bidders may purchase bonds on their own behalf or on behalf of other investors. The bonds are issued on behalf of the Crown by the New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO). The Reserve Bank conducts the bond tenders as agent for the NZDMO. When the bonds mature, the Crown repays them with funding from a variety of sources, such as its cash surplus, revenue from taxation and other sources or by undertaking new borrowing. Interest on the bonds is paid from the same sources.
This fully covers the information you requested.
Yours sincerely
Hon Trevor Mallard
Acting Minister of Finance.

On the 5 October 2007 I sent this reply to Trevor Mallard;
Regards Hon Trevor Mallard,
Could you please advise me, as to whether you researched and provided this answer yourself, thus are prepared to stake your present and future political reputation on it, or was it provided by one of the many State Sector advisers at your disposal. If the latter is the case, could you please provide me with the name and department of the author.
Thank you
Iain Parker
I then received on 10 October 2007 this reply from Michael Cullen;
Dear Mr Parker
I have received your email regarding the answer to your Official Information Act Request which was signed out by the Hon Trevor Mallard in my absence.
I am satisfied with the contents of the reply that you received from my acting minister. This request was dealt with under the standard procedures for replying to requests under the Act.
In this case, the draft reply was prepared on my behalf by Andrew Turner, Head of Portfolio Management at the Treasury.
Yours sincerely
Hon Dr Michael Cullen
Minister of Finance
end quotes

This information below from the New Zealand parliamentary record makes it clear that the above rebutting of the growing control by the IMF over New Zealand economic affairs was misleading and makes very clear that IMF regulation now becomes automatic financial system law within New Zealand without having to pass through the New Zealand parliament to be debated or voted upon;

http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/new-zealand-international-finance.html
New Zealand Minister of Finance the Hon BILL ENGLISH said in the debate;
“I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Our commitments to the IMF are effectively premiums to an insurance policy against damage to our economy from an unstable world....... New Zealand has already agreed to these changes, and adopting the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill simply puts that agreement into practice......The bill also creates a regulation-making power in the principal Act so that further updates to the articles can be made by regulation. This power will simplify the process by which New Zealand meets its obligations. Once changes to the articles are agreed to by the requisite majority of members of the international financial institutions, New Zealand will be bound by the amendments, which means that we are required to bring our domestic legislation into line with our international obligations.”
end

New Zealand opposition party finance spokesperson Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) said in debate;
“I rise to speak to this bill, the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill, on behalf of the Labour Party. The Labour Party will be supporting this bill to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The Labour Party supports the function of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and broadly agrees with the Minister of Finance that these are good institutions that assist the conduct of international economic affairs in a way that benefits New Zealand as well as other countries......I think New Zealanders will have more confidence in our participation in these international fora if they think that Governments are being transparent about changes to those international agreements and the effect of those changes on New Zealand. There is already enough suspicion out there as to the effect of international agreements. We breed further suspicion if we are not open and transparent about changes to those rules......For those reasons, amongst others, the Labour Party opposes future changes to this legislation by way of the statutory regulation-making power that this amendment Act creates. We believe that future amendments ought to come back to this Parliament. If we look back in the history, it has not been an onerous task for New Zealand to amend this legislation through annual amendments or anything like that. It is relatively rare that we have amendments to this International Finance Agreements Act, which dates back to 1975. “
end quotes

New Zealand Green Party Co-Leader - Russel Norman - having displayed a sense of growing environmental and social injustice - had “come out” - asking hard questions of the current money system orthodoxy after his 21 Feb 2013 International Finance Agreement Amendment Bill third reading - in which Russel Norman admitted to having only recently gained an understanding of just how New Zealand money supply originates and under what terms and conditions;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/new-zealand-international-finance.html
"The other thing that comes out of, I think, the IMF that surprises a lot of people is when the IMF says things like most of the money that is generated is generated by the private banks. Most of us, I think—and I was certainly one of these people, until reading IMF papers—always assume that the Government created the money. That is just because I actually did not follow it closely enough, whereas the IMF is very clear that it is the private banks that create most of the money. What the IMF—or, at least, some of the researchers within the IMF—is now saying is that the Government should use its ability to create money, so that there is some publicly created money as well as the privately created money, most of which is created by the private banks.
This, of course, is a pretty radical proposition, and the IMF, in putting forward this proposition, has certainly been shaking the policy debates around monetary policy all over the world, except in New Zealand, of course, where we are kind of locked into some weird backwater where the Government does not want to have a debate around any of this kind of stuff. But if you read the international literature, it is pretty good."
end quote

Russel Norman made clear his views again - and clearly had not yet buckled - in this 27 May 2013 article;
"In the debate around monetary policy, it is often forgotten that the default position is that the private banks create most of the money and lead the increase in the monetary supply. They then charge interest to the users of the money that they have created......The debate should be: what constraints should apply to the private creation of money given the banks’ irresponsible behaviour in the past; and should the public institutions be expanding money supply as a policy tool, to what extent, and to what purpose? Should the state be allowed to also increase the money supply for public purposes such as refilling the Natural Disaster Fund and to see what effect it can have on reducing the very damaging high NZ dollar?
The answers to these questions aren’t black and white but for my pick I think we need to restrain the banks lending into the housing bubble and use a trial public creation of money to restock the Natural Disaster Fund – both to be prepared for future disasters and to see what impact it would have on the dollar.
It is of course difficult to have a rational conversation around these issues in the current political context (ie Key’s scaremongering) but it is an important conversation for rational adults to have. We do have an out of control current account deficit and if we want to be masters of our own destiny we need to change policy settings as under Key’s plan our deficit and debt increase dramatically."
end quote
To understand how a New Zealand old boys network of lawyers are already busy on global arbitration panels confiscating the commonwealth essentials of life natural resources of nations on behalf of intra-national corporations that are party related to the British colonial heritage old boys private central banking network please read the details below of the New Zealand Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Act 1979 and loss of economic sovereignty that has resulted.
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1979/0039/latest/whole.html
An Act to implement an international Convention on the settlement of investment disputes between States and nationals of other States
1Short Title
This Act may be cited as the Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Act 1979.
2 Interpretation
In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,—
award means an award made pursuant to the Convention; and includes—
(a)any decision made pursuant to the Convention that interprets, revises, or annuls an award; and
(b)any decision as to costs that, pursuant to the Convention, is to form part of an award
Centre means the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes established pursuant to the Convention
Convention means the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States that was opened for signature in Washington on 18 March 1965, a copy of the English text of which is set out in the Schedule.
3Act binds the Crown
This Act binds the Crown.
Section 3: substituted, on 15 November 2000, by section 3 of the Arbitration (International Investment Disputes) Amendment Act 2000 (2000 No 52).
The Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Trade-Agreement (TPPA ) being negotiated by governments behind closed doors in secret, is in my opinion an attempt by the banking cartel pyramid fraudsters to boost the power of intra-national commercial contract law institutions in order to make it harder for nation states to take back what they have had stolen from them under false pretenses.
The New Zealand government signed up to the International Committee for the Settlement of Investment Disputes - ICSID - in 1970 - ratifying in 1980 – that has seen New Zealand lawyers involved global arbitration processes that have more often than not seen the findings fall in favour of corportions under very questionable circumstances;
Chapman Tripp acts in first ever bilateral investment treaty hearing held in New Zealand
27 April 2012
Leading New Zealand law firm Chapman Tripp, acting as co-counsel with international law firm Salans, have secured a successful decision in the first ever bilateral investment treaty arbitration hearing held in New Zealand.

Chapman Tripp obtains first NZ subpoena of witness for foreign arbitration

02 March 2015
In a first for New Zealand, Chapman Tripp has obtained a High Court order of subpoena requiring a New Zealand-based witness to provide evidence for an international arbitration tribunal sitting in London.
New Zealand’s Arbitration Act 1996 expressly authorises the High Court to issue orders of subpoena, but only for New Zealand-seated arbitrations.  The order was accordingly obtained using procedures in the Evidence Act 2006 for giving effect to letters of request from a foreign “requesting court”, which is defined as “any court or tribunal exercising jurisdiction in a country or territory outside New Zealand”.  In this case, a letter of request was prepared and sent by the LCIA arbitral tribunal to the New Zealand High Court.
Chapman Tripp litigation partner Daniel Kalderimis successfully argued that a foreign arbitral tribunal qualified as a requesting court.  The High Court agreed, holding that the limited scope of the Arbitration Act procedure did not preclude use of the Evidence Act procedure, and electing not to follow overseas authority – informed by the Hague Evidence Convention, to which New Zealand is not (yet) a party – holding that private arbitral tribunals are not requesting courts.   
The witness’s evidence was given in the form of examination in New Zealand, from Chapman Tripp’s offices, with the LCIA arbitral tribunal and counsel in the London arbitration participating live by audio-visual link.
A copy of the High Court decision can be found here.
NEW ZEALAND
Panel of Arbitrators
Designation effective November 12, 2013:
Campbell Alan McLachlan
http://www.essexcourt.net/news/424/professor-campbell-mclachlan-joins-essex-court-chambers
ICSID: Details of operation and costs of cases.
By Inna Uchkunova, International Moot Court Competition Association (IMCCA)
“Research is formalized curiosity…” – Z. Hurston
In what follows I have tried to gather information from publicly available sources regarding some of the questions which have troubled my mind lately. It is hoped that the results would be of interest to the readers. For me, this proved to be one of my most exciting projects so far. The idea was conceived during my work in the IMCCA – Bulgaria (International Moot Court Competition Association) which unites past and present Ph. C. Jessup Moot Court participants (as well as participants from other moot courts) who share their love for International Law in a country where it is not lectured in-depth in universities. IMCCA and America for Bulgaria Foundation provide us with the necessary stimuli to learn more and to achieve more.
The information presented is subject to the caveat that not all ICSID awards are public or may have otherwise escaped my acquisition efforts. In this and any other regard, I would appreciate further supplement or corrections.
Which arbitrators have sat the most in ICSID cases?
(in alphabetical order, including cases which have been settled)
Alexandrov, Stanimir A.
Álvarez, Henri C.
Berg, Albert Jan van den
Berman, Franklin
Bernardini, Piero
Böckstiegel, Karl-Heinz
Brower, Charles N.
Crawford, James R.
Cremades, Bernardo M.
El-Kosheri, Ahmed Sadek
Fernández-Armesto, Juan
Fortier, L. Yves
Gaillard, Emmanuel
Griffith, Gavan
Guillaume, Gilbert
Hanotiau, Bernard
Kaufmann-Kohler, Gabrielle
Lalonde, Marc
Lowe, Vaughan
McLachlan, Campbell
McRae, Donald M.
Naón, Horacio A. Grigera
Oreamuno, Rodrigo
Paulsson, Jan
Stern, Brigitte
Tercier, Pierre
Thomas, J. Christopher
Veeder, V.V.
Vicuña, Francisco Orrego
Williams, David A.R.
Wobeser, Claus von
Who is the first woman to sit as an arbitrator in an ICSID case?
Mme Rosalyn Higgins in 1987, in the resubmitted Amco case.
It is noticeable that international arbitration remains a man-dominated profession.
Which is the Claimant which has filed the most applications?
Impregilo, S.p.A has appeared as Claimant in 5 cases so far (most of them discontinued):
Impregilo S.p.A and Rizzani De Eccher S.p.A. v. United Arab Emirates(ICSID Case No. ARB/01/1)
Impregilo S.p.A. v. Islamic Republic of Pakistan (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/2)
Impregilo S.p.A. v. Islamic Republic of Pakistan (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/3)
Impregilo S.p.A. v. Argentine Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/07/17)
Impregilo S.p.A. v. Argentine Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/08/14)
Which is the State appearing the most times as a Respondent?
(includes cases which have been settled or discontinued)
Argentina 49
Venezuela 36
Egypt 17
Ecuador 12
Congo 12
Peru 11
Ukraine 10
Curious facts regarding the composition of some of the Tribunals
● All the initially appointed arbitrators in the cases MTD v. Chile (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/7), Vannessa Ventures v. Venezuela (ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/04/6) and Víctor Pey Casado v. Chile (ICSID Case No. ARB/98/2) resigned.
● Two of the three arbitrators in the annulment proceedings in the cases of MTD v. Chile and CMS v. Argentina were the same which made the outcome of e.g. the later-in-time decision on stay of enforcement.
● The arbitrators in the Malaysian Historical Salvors v. Malaysia (ICSID Case No. ARB/05/10) annulment proceedings were all past and present Judges from the International Court of Justice.
● The arbitrators in the cases of Pioneer v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/12) and Pan American v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/13), and Alcoa Minerals v. Jamaica (ICSID Case No. ARB/74/2), Kaiser Bauxite Company v. Jamaica (ICSID Case No. ARB/74/3) and Reynolds v. Jamaica(ICSID Case No. ARB/74/4), respectively, were all the same.
Which law firms have served the most times in ICSID cases?
(in alphabetical order)
Arnold & Porter LLP
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
King & Spalding LLP
Latham & Watkins LLP
Shearman & Sterling LLP
Sidley Austin LLP
White & Case LLP
Which prominent scholars have served as party-representatives or counsels in ICSID cases?
Judge Stephen M. Schwebel
Prof. Dr. James R. Crawford
Prof. Christopher Greenwood
Prof. Alain Pellet
Prof. Philippe Sands, QC
Prof. Antonio Crivellaro
In which fields of economic activity most of the cases find their origin?
Hydrocarbon concessions, petroleum and oil exploration and production, gas supply and distribution 71
Electric power generation, distribution and sale 39
Mining concessions and mineral exploration 31
Construction contracts, including real estate, dams, etc. 21
Highway construction contracts 14
Telecommunications 13
Water services 12
Which is the first ICSID award?
The Award rendered on August 29, 1977 in the case of Adriano Gardella S.p.A. v. Côte d’Ivoire (ICSID Case No. ARB/74/1).
What is the highest award amount so far?
The highest award amount of US$ 1,769,625,000 was awarded in the case of Occidental v. Ecuador (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/11) Award of October 5, 2012.
What is the lowest award amount so far?
It seems that the lowest award amount of US$ 460,000 (as principal) was awarded in Asian Agricultural Products Ltd. v. Sri Lanka (ICSID Case No. ARB/87/3) Award of June 27, 1990.
How much does an ICSID case cost in terms of legal costs?
The information below was intended to bring light to the question how much does an ICSID case cost in terms of legal representation. The information provided must be retained with caution since legal costs depend, among others, on the duration and the complexity of the case. Moreover, many awards are not publicly available and most Tribunals order that each party bears its own costs of legal representation without mentioning the sums.
Here are some examples of the practice of ICSID Tribunals:
● In CDC v. Seychelles (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/14) Award of December 17, 2003, Seychelles were ordered to pay the Claimant the sum of £ 100,000 representing legal fees.
● In Pantechniki v. Albania (ICSID Case No. ARB/07/21) Award of July 30, 2009, the cost claims of the parties were among the lowest – EUR 154,523 and EUR 269,657, respectively.
● In Telenor Mobile v. Hungary (ICSID Case No. ARB/04/15) Award of September 13, 2006, the Counsel for Hungary demanded the reimbursement of US$ 1,249,340.29.
● In Siag v. Egypt (ICSID Case No.ARB/05/15) Award of June 1, 2009, Egypt was ordered to pay the the sum of USD 6,000,000 in legal costs.
● In Spyridon Roussalis v. Romania (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/1) Award of December 7, 2011, the Claimant had to pay 60% of the Respondent’s legal fees in the amount of EUR 6,053,443.78.
● The Tribunal in Cementownia Nowa Huta S.A. v. Turkey (ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/06/2) Award of September 17, 2009 found that:
“the Respondent’s legal fees and expenses are not unreasonable having regard to the course of these proceedings and that, therefore, the Claimant is to bear such costs in the amount of USD 4,904,822.06.” (para. 178)
● In Kardassopoulos & Fuchs v. Georgia (ICSID Case Nos. ARB/05/18 and ARB/07/15) Award of March 3, 2010, the Respondent was liable to pay the Claimants their costs for the proceedings in the total amount of US$ 7,942,297.
● In ADC v. Hungary (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/16) Award of October 2, 2006, the Claimant demanded US$ 7,623,693 in respect of the Claimants’ costs and expenses. The Tribunal found
“no reason to depart from the starting point that the successful party should receive reimbursement from the unsuccessful party.” (para. 533)
See also Abaclat et al. v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/07/5) at para. 682.
● The Tribunal in Gemplus & Talsud v. United Mexican States (ICSID Cases Nos. ARB (AF)/04/3 & ARB (AF)/04/4)) Award of June 16, 2010 recognized that:
“It is well-known that legal costs incurred by respondent-state parties are usually much lower than costs incurred by claimant-private parties, partly because a claimant bears a greater burden in presenting and proving its case, partly because a state’s billing practices with its legal representatives are different and partly, as here, where there is more than one claimant bringing claims under more than one treaty.” (para. 17-25)
Which is the most invoked BIT?
From the information available it may be concluded that this is the Argentina – U.S. Bilateral Investment Treaty which was relied upon,inter alia, in the following cases:
CMS v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/8)
Azurix Corp. v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/12)
Continental Casualty Company v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/9)
Pan American Energy LLC and BP Argentina Exploration Company v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/13)
Enron v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/3)
LG&E v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/1)
Sempra v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/16)
AES Corporation v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/17)
El Paso Energy v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/15)
How long does an ICSID case take?
Approximately 3.6 years. See Sinclair, A., ICSID Arbitration: how long does it take?, 4:5 GAR J. (2009), available here .
Which is the shortest merits award (in terms of length)?
CDC v. Seychelles (ICSID Case No. ARB/02/14) Award of December 17, 2003 – 23 pages.
Which is the longest merits award (in terms of length)?
Gemplus & Talsud v. United Mexican States (ICSID Cases Nos. ARB (AF)/04/3 & ARB (AF)/04/4)) Award of June 16, 2010 – 382 pages
Are there claims filed by a State against an investor?
Gabon v. Société Serete S.A. (ICSID Case No. ARB/76/1)
The basis of jurisdiction was a contract. The case was eventually settled.
Romania’s counterclaim in Spyridon Roussalis v. Romania (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/1) was admitted on the basis of the umbrella clause found in Article Article 2(6) of the Romania-Greece BIT. (Award of December 7, 2011, para. 781)
Which cases may be called landmark cases?
While it may be said that every decision and award rendered by an ICSID Tribunal (or committee) contains interesting findings of law, among them the following may be mentioned as particularly interesting:
● Santa Elena v. Costa Rica (ICSID Case No. ARB/96/1) Final award of February 17, 2000, on the compound interest. Up until this point, most of the ICSID Tribunals denied awarding compound interest relying on a citation from Marjorie Whiteman in her book Damages in International Law vol. III (1943) at p. 1997:
“[t]here are few rules within the scope of the subject of damages in international law that are better settled than the one that compound interest is not allowable.”
This is, among other things, evidence of the influence a scholar can have on international law.
● Maffezini v. Spain (ICSID Case No. ARB/97/7) Award of November 9, 2000, as to attribution of State responsibility.
● Salini v. Morocco (ICSID Case No. ARB/00/4) Decision on Jurisdiction of July 23, 2001, regarding the so-called Salini test for the notion of investment.
● Vivendi v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/97/3) First Annulment, Decision on Annulment dated July 3, 2002, as to the relation between treaty and contract.
● SGS v. Pakistan (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/13) Decision of the Tribunal on objections to jurisdiction of August 6, 2003 and SGS v. Philippines(ICSID Case No. ARB/02/6) Decision of the Tribunal on objections to jurisdiction of January 29, 2004, with regard to the so-called umbrella clause.
● ADC v. Hungary (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/16) Award of October 2, 2006, in relation to valuation in cases of unlawful expropriation.
● Phoenix Action v. the Czech Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/06/5) Award of April 15, 2009, as to bona fide investments.
● Abaclat et al. v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/07/5) Decision on jurisdiction and admissibility August 4, 2011, regarding admissibility of mass claims of 60,000 Claimants (the total number of whom at the time of initiation of the arbitration exceeded 180,000) mostly natural persons of Italian nationality relating to bonds issued by Argentina.
Which States have refused to comply with ICSID awards or have considerably obstructed compliance?
Argentina is well known for its interpretation of Articles 53 and 54, i.e. that the successful Claimant’s recourse to enforcement in its national courts is a pre-condition for payment of the award (See for e.g. Enron v. Argentina (ICSID Case No. ARB/01/3) Decision on the Argentine Republic’s Request for a Continued Stay of Enforcement of the Award, 7 October 2008, available here).
Which States have withdrawn from the ICSID Convention?
Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
Which States are not parties to the ICSID Convention?
Brazil and India are not among the 158 Members to the ICSID Convention.
Other curious facts
● After the award in the RSM v. Grenada (ICSID Case No. ARB/05/14) was rendered, RSM tried to sue Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP counsel for Grenada alleging that Freshfields conspired to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by, for e.g., Jan Paulsson and Brian King being part of the conspiracy to bribe Grenada officials and deny RSM its licensing rights. RSM claimed the excess of US$500 million in damages. The claim was dismissed. See US District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action No. 10-00457 availablehere.
● Both the Claimant and the Respondent in the Europe Cement Investment v. Turkey (ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/07/2) Award of August 13, 2009, ended up claiming that the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction. This is one of the Uzan family-related cases against Turkey. The Claimant wanted to discontinue the proceedings but the Respondent State disagreed. (See para. 139 of the Award)
Funniest quote from an ICSID award
“[H]appiness is multiple pipelines”
Mentioned in the case of Kardassopoulos & Fuchs v. Georgia (ICSID Case Nos. ARB/05/18 and ARB/07/15) Award of March 3, 2010, para. 5, in relation to the Western Route which was of
“significant national and strategic importance for Georgia as a means of securing its sovereignty following the break up of the Soviet Union and deepening its ties to the West.” (para. 3)
Recommendations
The site of ICSID is informative and accessible. Still it may be improved by, for e.g., adding information as to the basis of the jurisdiction in the particular case, nationality of the Claimant, amount claimed, amount awarded, who represented the parties, which was the successful party, costs of the proceedings, etc.
End
Largest Award Ever in Bilateral Investment Treaty Case at ICSID
07 November 2012
In the largest arbitral award ever to be rendered by a tribunal at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the Republic of Ecuador has been ordered to pay $1,769,625,000 (US) for terminating an oil production investment held by the U.S. company, Occidental Petroleum. Arbitrators in the case were Canadian lawyer, L. Yves Fortier QC, retired New Zealand judge David AR Williams, and retired French law professor Brigitte Stern.
Occidental filed for arbitration under the U.S.-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty (BIT) following Ecuador’s May 2006 decision to terminate a participation contract for Block 15 located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Authorities blamed the move on Oxy’s having improperly transferred a share of its Ecuadorian production activity to a Canadian energy firm.
In a 336 page award an ICSID arbitral tribunal conceded that Occidental had breached the terms of the participation contract by failing to obtain government authorization for the transfer of rights. However, arbitrators held that Ecuador’s decision to strip Occidental of its investment and its failure to pay compensation were disproportionate, and in breach of Ecuador’s treaty obligations to provide for “fair and equitable treatment” and to refrain from expropriating assets without compensation. Arbitrators also found that Ecuador’s actions breached its own laws.
The damages awarded by arbitrators reflect the value of Occidental’s investment as of May 2006 when its contact was terminated, minus a 25% deduction due to Occidental’s own breach of the participation contract. Ecuador must also pay interest of 4.18% on the awarded sum, compounded annually, to reflect the increase in value of the damages from May 2006 until the time of the arbitral award.
In a dissenting opinion Ecuador’s nominee to the three member arbitral tribunal, expressed her agreement with the majority’s analysis of the facts and the law, including its finding that Ecuador acted disproportionately in response to what she termed Occidental’s “serious violation” of Ecuadorian law.
However, Prof. Stern expressed “complete disagreement with the way damages have been calculated”, and would have favoured a 50/50 approach to damages similar to that in an earlier ICSID arbitration (MTD v Chile), so that Oxy’s damages would be halved as a result of its having “acted both very imprudently and illegally.”
End quote
Anyone wanting to know much more detail of exactly how the British colonial heritage old boys private central banking network has put New Zealand under the control of their receivership branch the - International Monetary Fund (IMF) - alongside their legal branch the - International Committee for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) - please read this document;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/universal-public-credit-public-policy.html
and many more informative global money system structure articles here;
http://publiccreditorbust.blogspot.co.nz/

Friday 12 September 2014

New Zealand Minister's of Finance Official Information Replies re Money System Structures.

Sorry to tell you that in most cases politicians in the front office are only swallowing and regurgitating second hand summarised information supplied by 'officials' out in the back office. Below are several examples of the admissions of this practice from both former Minister of Finance Michael Cullen and present Minister of Finance Bill English;

(Please note the 2007 dates of the Michael Cullen Official Information Act reply and the line of questioning in it by Iain Parker over a year ahead of the 2008 global credit crisis and consider how correct his allegations stack up against the findings of the 2011 final report of the US National Commission On The Cause Of The Financial And Economic Crisis In The United States at this link here;

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf )

On the 13th May 2007, I asked these questions of Minister of Finance Michael Cullen;
Regards minister Cullen,
I am requesting for as long as records have been kept, an annual breakdown of the number of trust funds that have been investigated as to their legitimacy, the number of funds that were found to be shams, and the number of individuals who were prosecuted for setting up trusts as shams?

Also, to your knowledge Sir, is it correct to say that under the system referred to as "money creation" that the very rich and powerful privately owned banks that are stakeholders in the collective privately owned institutes US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, have been entrusted with the ability to create money out of fresh air as bits on a computer, then lend it to governments and commercial banks as interest bearing debt, as long-term loans known as Bonds, which have the interest payable on this counterfeit principle secured against the future taxes of the nation?
yours
Iain Parker

May 2007;
Regards MR Cullen,
I am still awaiting your explanation of the international monetary lending system, especially confirmation that our Govt Bonds are long-term loans from the private stakeholders of the US federal reserve and the Bank of England, who have the ability to create the principal of these loans out of nothing, that is the money is neither created by labour, productivity or is convertible to tangible assets?
Thank you
Iain Parker

I then received a reply from Michael Cullen 19 June 2007;

Dear Iain Parker
In your email of 13 May 2007 you asked whether privately owned banks in the UK and US have the ability to create money in the form of bonds issued to their governments.

As I have no responsibility for any institutions in the UK or US I am unable to comment on the process of creating bonds in those countries. However, I am able to explain the situation that applies in New Zealand.

In New Zealand, our central bank, the Reserve Bank, is wholly owned by the crown. Its institutional direction is explicitly set through the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989(the Act), and for monetary policy in an ancillary agreement between myself and the Governor of the Reserve Bank, known as the Policy Targets Agreement. The act has limited the governments ability to finance expenditure through credit creation; in the past , governments borrowed from the Reserve Bank to finance a portion of their deficit. (This way of financing government expenditure persisted until a Labour government was elected in 1984).

In effect, this meant that the government printed money to pay for its expenditure instead of raising taxes or borrowing from the private sector. While this method of financing can be used to pay for infrastructure or social services like health, ultimately the process tends to be inflationary. This type of borrowing was one of the main factors behind New Zealand's very high rates of inflation in the 1970's.

As a result, the Act sets out that the primary purpose of the Bank is to ensure stability in the general level of prices. More specifically, the Policy Targets Agreement states that the Reserve Bank Governor must keep inflation within a band of 1-3 percent over the medium term. The main tool the Governor has to keep inflation within this band is the Official Cash Rate (OCR).

Issuing of bonds is an accepted method of financing investment. Regardless of where a bond originates, it is essentially a certificate of indebtedness. The New Zealand government, through the Debt Management Office, maintains a programme of bond issuance to finance its investment programme. There are no requirements on the Reserve Bank to purchase these bonds, although it may from time to time when necessary to meet its objectives. The financial reporting requirements of the Public Finance Act provides for the public disclosure of all
financial transactions between the government, the Reserve Bank and the wider economy, and ensures that I and the Reserve Bank are accountable for the outcomes.
I trust this has helped to answer your question.
Yours sincerely
Hon Dr Michael Cullen
Minister of Finance

- I would like to add a foot note here. Michael Cullen states above - "The financial reporting requirements of the Public Finance Act provides for the public disclosure of all financial transactions between the government, the Reserve Bank and the wider economy, and ensures that I and the Reserve Bank are accountable for the outcomes". - yet if you read the State Sector Act 1988 then go to the website of the New Zealand Securities Commission, you will discover that the CEO of the Securities Commission has almost autonomous power to issue exemptions to multinational corporations that circumvent our protecting financial regulations, including a disclosure exemption to the New Zealand Debt Management Office that makes a mockery of the above statement. At the time of printing, if you go to internet web address -
http://www.seccom.govt.nz/notices/summaries/2004/ - then scrolled down to find - Securities Act (Crown Wholesale Debt Securities) Exemption Notice 2004 -
This exemption prevents the NZDMO from having to openly disclose that a bunch of privately owned foreign central banks have a monopoly on the issuance and on selling of our Government Bonds.

I sent this email to Minister of Finance Michael Cullen 4 September 2007 ;
Regards Dr Cullen,
1) I am seeking any information now eligible for release, regarding the secret Memorandums of understanding, or Structural adjustment programs imposed upon us by the IMF/World Bank during the restructuring of our(NZ) nations debts or what was essentially liquidation, in 1961 and 1984?
2) To your knowledge, the money used by registered bond traders, who are the only ones eligible to purchase the larger blocks of our govt bonds, all of whom are the private stakeholders of what is referred to as the "Central banking system", to your knowledge does this so called "Power money" have any net tangible backing, or is it merely created as digital bits on a computer, then loaned into the system as interest bearing debt, only given its value by the promised repayment out of the future taxes of the nation.?
Yours sincerely
Iain Parker

I received this reply from the Acting Minister of Finance Trevor Mallard 2 October 2007 ;

Dear Iain Parker
Thank you for your letter which was received on 5 September 2007 concerning an Official Information Act request. You requested:
1) I am seeking any information now eligible for release, regarding the secret Memorandums of understanding, or Structural adjustment programs imposed upon us by the IMF/World Bank during the restructuring of our(NZ) nations debts or what was essentially liquidation, in 1961 and 1984?
2) To your knowledge, the money used by registered bond traders, who are the only ones eligible to purchase the larger blocks of our govt bonds, all of whom are the private stakeholders of what is referred to as the "Central banking system", to your knowledge does this so called "Power money" have any net tangible backing, or is it merely created as digital bits on a computer, then loaned into the system as interest bearing debt, only given its value by the promised repayment out of the future taxes of the nation.?

New Zealand joined the IMF and the World Bank in 1961. There was no financial crisis in New Zealand at the time and New Zealand did not restructure its debt as a result of joining. There are no secret memoranda of understanding and no structural adjustment programmes were imposed on New Zealand. All the documents related to the decision to join the two institutions are publicly available from Archives New Zealand.

In June 1984, New Zealand drew down its Reserve Tranche at the IMF. The Reserve Tranche is essentially a countries foreign currency deposit with the IMF and can be drawn on at any time for balance of payments reasons without requiring approval from the IMF board. There is no conditionality attached to such a drawing and so no structural adjustment programme was imposed.

Once again, all relevant documents are publicly available at Archives New Zealand.
Accordingly, I have decided to refuse your request under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act 1982 - that the information you requested is or will soon be publicly available.

In response to your second question, registered bidders in New Zealand government Bond tenders purchase New Zealand government bonds using cash which they get from their shareholders, from profits on their operations or from borrowing against future income. Please note that bidders may purchase bonds on their own behalf or on behalf of other investors. The bonds are issued on behalf of the Crown by the New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO). The Reserve Bank conducts the bond tenders as agent for the NZDMO. When the bonds mature, the Crown repays them with funding from a variety of sources, such as its cash surplus, revenue from taxation and other sources or by undertaking new borrowing. Interest on the bonds is paid from the same sources.
This fully covers the information you requested.
Yours sincerely
Hon Trevor Mallard
Acting Minister of Finance.

On the 5 October 2007 I sent this reply to Trevor Mallard;
Regards Hon Trevor Mallard,
could you please advise me, as to whether you researched and provided this answer yourself, thus are prepared to stake your present and future political reputation on it, or was it provided by one of the many State Sector advisers at your disposal. If the latter is the case, could you please provide me with the name and department of the author.
Thank you
Iain Parker

I then received on 10 October 2007 this reply from Michael Cullen;
Dear Mr Parker
I have received your email regarding the answer to your Official Information Act Request which was signed out by the Hon Trevor Mallard in my absence.
I am satisfied with the contents of the reply that you received from my acting minister. This request was dealt with under the standard procedures for replying to requests under the Act.
In this case, the draft reply was prepared on my behalf by Andrew Turner, Head of Portfolio Management at the Treasury.
Yours sincerely
Hon Dr Michael Cullen
Minister of Finance

Former New Zealand Labour Party Minister of Finance Minister of Finance - 10 December 1999 > 19 November 2008 - Michael Cullen - said this in 2012;

'Govt wouldn't let the big banks fall over'

And in terms of the big banks, he says there has always been "a degree of pretense" around the idea the government didn't stand behind them.

"If they were systemically important in reality the government couldn't afford to let them fall over. But no Minister of Finance is ever going to say that as Minister of Finance. It's only when they're old and clapped out and out of a job that they can actually say that."

Yet New Zealand Labour still put Michael Cullen up on a pedestal and New Zealand National Party appoint him to run government departments in preparation for privitisation, go figure?


Office of Hon Bill English
Deputy Prime Minister Minister of Finance
Minister for Infrastructure
1 8 JAN 2010

Dear lain Parker
Thank you for your Official Information Act request, received on 27 November 2009. You asked a”number of questions about the nature of government bonds; as well as about the nature of money and the banking system.

1. Could you please tell me what a Government Bond is and what role it plays in our economy?

As you point out on page 7 of your submission, New Zealand government bonds are wholesale, New Zealand dollar denominated, fixed-term debt securities. They are secured by a charge upon and are payable out of the revenues of the Crown. Cash received by government bond issuance is used to fund goods and services provided by the government, e.g. roading, hospitals and welfare payments. Government bond yields provide an indication of the “risk free” rate of return in an economy and provide companies and households a benchmark with which to compare returns against those of alternative investments.

2. Could you please tell me who in the world of high finance, as Primary Bond Dealers, has the right to buy or monetise government debt bonds before they decide if they do or don’t on sell them on the secondary bond market?

New Zealand does not have “Primary Bond Dealers.” The term “Primary Bond Dealers” refers to institutions that, for example, trade directly with the United States Federal Reserve, where they are required to participate when the Federal Reserve holds securities auctions. In New Zealand, the nearest equivalent institutions are called registered tender counterparties. The main difference between the US and New Zealand is that registered counterparties are eligible but not required to participate in government securities tenders.
To qualify for registration as a tender counterparty, an institution must have a minimum credit rating of A-/A3, or have their obligations guaranteed by a parent entity with a minimum credit rating of A-/A3, or be a Crown financial institution.Tender counterparties are primarily either New Zealand or Australian incorporated banks.

3. Are the Primary Bond Dealers private or publicly owned institutions? That is not those that buy bonds on the secondary bond market, but the Primary Bond Dealers?

Tender counterparties are primarily private sector banks.

4. Could you please tell me what they use to buy our government bonds and if that medium of exchange existed before we pledged to pay it back with attached interest out of the future taxes of the nation or was it an electronic debt book entry, not anyone’s existing savings, but an electronic book entry that brings into circulation new money?

People purchasing government bonds must do so with New Zealand dollars. Settlement of the transaction between the purchaser and the Crown is by electronic cash transfer rather than physical cash. All else being equal, bond purchases result in a reduction in settlement cash balances of the banking system (either at commercial banks, the Reserve Bank or both) as cash is transferred to the Crown. An explanation for how this cash may originally be created is included in the answer to question 5 below.

5. Is it true that in excess of 90% of the money supply in circulation in New Zealand entered circulation as interest bearing debt owed to the banking network?

It is correct that most of the money supply in New Zealand has been created by the banking sector. This is done through the process of financial intermediation. Commercial banks, and other financial institutions, take deposits from members of the public and firms who wish to hold cash in the form of bank deposits. They then lend to individuals and firms who want to borrow — in the form of mortgages or business loans. This process serves to channel funds between savers and borrowers. It also shifts the risk of lending from individual savers to the banks, thereby reducing the risk of lending.
This process of intermediation involves the commercial banks lending a greater value of funds than the cash they reserve to meet expected deposit withdrawals. This is done because at any one time only a fraction of depositors will want to withdraw their funds. Banks therefore need to keep only a fraction of their deposits in reserve in order to meet those demands. Because the banks lend more than the total amount of cash held in reserve in the system, credit is created – thus increasing the money supply.
The exact proportion depends on the definition of the money supply. Using the most common definition of the money supply as M2 (i.e. currency held by the public + balances in cheque accounts + all other business or personal deposits that are available on demand), the October 2009 data show that the part not accounted for by currency held by the public is 95%.
Data on money aggregates can be found on the RBNZ website at:
http://www.rbnz.govt/ nzlstatistics/monfin/cl /data.html.

6. Prime Minister Key, could you please describe your activities as a member of the Advisory Board of the Foreign Exchange Committee of the US Federal Reserve between 1999-2001?

I refer you to the reply from the Office of the Prime Minister.


7. Could all please advise me if the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are privately owned institutions that sit within their respective governments or publicly owned institutions within their governments?

I refer you to the following pages on the websites of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England respectively for this information:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/Qf/pf.htm
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/leciisIation/leciis.htm

8. Could you please explain to me the role and relationship of the American Financial institution — Northern Trust — in regard to it being appointed custodian of our own NZ Debt Management Office?

The New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO) has appointed Northern Trust as global custodian for NZDMO fixed income assets. The appointment followed a competitive tender exercise which was completed in 2008. Custodian duties provided by Northern Trust for the NZDMO are standard for financial institutions and include: the provision of trade settlement services; safekeeping of assets; and other administrative functions.

9. Could you please tell me if in New Zealand, a “new” mortgage at issuance, before it becomes tradable, is loaned to a borrower by a registered bank, is that mortgage created as a debt book entry account, not anyone’s existing savings, but an electronic debt book entry creating “new money”?

The creation of a new residential mortgage will generally result in new money (bank deposits) being created. The bank grants a new loan to a purchaser, who uses the cash to buy property from a vendor. The vendor then may spend or save the proceeds boosting deposits in the financial system.
You also ask for a list of the names of the officials who contributed to this reply. I am withholding these names in full under s.9(2)(g)(i) of the Official Information Act — to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free and frank expression of opinions.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review my decision.This fully covers the information you requested. I hope you find this information useful
Yours sincerely
Bill English
Minister of Finance



Another case of New Zealand Government throwing its arms in the air in regards to financial frauds they clearly know the banking sector is committing against the citizens and businesses of honest enterprise of New Zealand.

Here are the details of an email conversation between the New Zealand Minister of Finance Office and a New Zealand citizen in regards to an article about money system funding structures they had read in a newspaper.

The discussed article can be read in full at the bottom of the email conversation transcript.

From: Anita Schurmann
Sent: Thursday, 4 June 2015 6:03 a.m.
To: bill.english@national.org.nz
Subject: Money Creation

Dear Bill English
As you are the minister of finance I recommend that you read this article which recently appeared in the Otaki Mail.
http://otakimail.co.nz/outside-the-box-challenging-convent…/
I expect you are aware that banks are allowed to create money from nothing and lend it out at interest. In the past most people in NZ were unaware or didn’t believe that banks did this. However, as more and more people now understand and are realizing that this is going on, I believe it is time to change legislation to stop this unlawful behaviour. Money should be created for public good to facilitate trade, and should not be under the control of private corporations to make a profit. As you are probably aware this current monetary system is the main reason why the world economy is in such crisis. It is time to change the system for the good of all people. If New Zealand takes the lead in this are the rest of the world will most likely follow, as people throughout the world have had enough of the corporate controlled system that is destroying our world and our communities. Please let me know when you intend to change the law so creation of money is under the control of the democratically elected government rather than private companies.
Yours sincerely
Anita Schurmann


Office of Hon Bill English
14 July 2015

Dear Anita Schurmann thank you for your email 4 June 2015 in which you raised concerns about the the Government allowing banks to create money on their own through the system of fractional reserve banking.

The system discussed in the article you refer to, is one that has been considered at times as the role of financial institutions hs evolved. Irving Fisher suggested a possible structure and approach to your suggestion in the Chicago Plan, eighty years ago, and there are some theoretical advantages that may result from a system set up in this way, including better control of business cycle fluctuations.

However, the transition to such a system would be hugely coomplex and is inherently fraught with great risks. We would wnt increased certainty and evidence regarding the benefits before change could even be considered, and the luck of such a system in any developed market economies makes such evidence hard to obtain.

Equally, the current monetary system allows for the provision of credit, which serves a very important function in allowing people to smooth their consumption over time and allowing firms to invest in productive capital.

Finally, it is not entirely clear whether it would be possible to move to the system outlined in the 'Chicago Plan' without an intensive global shift in monetary regimes. If New Zealand were to be a first mover, it is unclear what the effects would be for trade and the exchange rate in a small, open economy.

Yours sincerely

Hon Bill English
Minister of Finance


Here is the article in full that is being discussed in the email exchange;

Outside the Box — challenging conventional thinking and offering new perspectives about our world

Let’s Change our Money-as-Debt Problem
By Amanda Vickers June 2015

You’d think that the most important aspect of a sovereign nation would be for its Government to have sole rights to issue its country’s money supply. But not so: this function has been appropriated primarily by privately owned banks. “Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.” — Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin (Q1, 2014)*

Our nation’s money comes in to existence through debt. As more money enters the economy, the more debt we have (Government or private). Counter-intuitively, what benefits the individual does not benefit the nation as a whole. In fact, if we all repaid all our loans, there would be 98% less money left in the economy because, as it turns out, only ~2% of our nation’s money supply is issued by the RBNZ — as notes and coins.

So there you have it. Banks create our nation’s money supply when credit is drawn (monetized), destroy money when loans are repaid, and profit immensely from the interest charged on the loans. Most bank profit is obtained from the difference between interest we pay for these loans (created credit) and the interest they pay out for the corresponding deposits. The four big banks in NZ were making record profits in 2014, with ~4.3 billion dollars heading offshore to Australia and beyond. This is hard-earned New Zealander’s money leaving our real economy, and being transferred to the private banking sector.

Sovereign money advocates term this concept “economic rent” and claim that private banks, seeking to maximise profits, shouldn’t be “renting” money to Government, businesses and citizens of a free, sovereign country. This growing money supply and these growing debts are also secured by NZ’s assets, resources and labour force (you).

If we had a Government issued money supply requiring banks to have 100% reserves for money they lend, we would see dramatic improvements in our economy. We could have both less debt and enough money to thrive. The International Movement for Monetary Reform proposes just this and has gathered a huge following since the 2008 global financial crisis.

This “sovereign-money” proposal proved itself when it was modeled by the International Monetary Fund**. Their analysis showed that the benefits of 100% reserve banking would be: dramatically reduced public and private (net) debt levels (because money creation no longer requires simultaneous debt creation), better control of business cycle fluctuations, complete elimination of bank runs, output gains of 10% and that inflation can drop to zero without posing problems for the conduct of monetary policy.

It is great the IMF analysis has concluded something that also seems intuitive and logical. Sovereign money advocates extrapolate further that the outcome would also be far reaching throughout our economy and our lives. They say it could also improve: the inequality gap, child poverty, housing bubble control, student debt, state asset sales, job security, local businesses performance (due to the 10% higher output gains), budgets for local community projects and facilities, health care and education.

It’s not a bad outcome for one law change: 100% reserve banking. The irony is that the law would change to how most people think it actually works now — where our Government issues the nation’s money supply. It simply requires updating the 1844 Bank Charter Act, which forbade banks from printing notes. If only they’d included something to prevent ledger balance accounting tricks, creating credit — which they have done to this very day!

One obstacle is the general lack of understanding about how the monetary system really works by both the public and many politicians. There is also a fair amount of inertia and political resistance to the reform. The change is a big one, so is therefore daring and challenging. Some politicians fear sovereign money because it may affect NZ’s Standard and Poor’s (S&Ps) credit rating. S&Ps may mistrust the Government thinking they would simply issue too much money too easily, causing an inflationary crisis, creating a currency devaluation, which would in turn affect trade.

Realising the importance of “why” we should address a problem, motivates people to find the “how”. Money reform advocates found it was not rocket science. Their solution could work in much the same way that the RBNZ independently oversees monetary policy now. A democratic, transparent and accountable body (Monetary Policy Committee) could independently separate the function of money issuance from money spending. They would be tasked with the role private banks have now: creating and destroying the nation’s money supply. This could be done exactly as needed — debt free — within inflationary limits. Our government would also have greater control over where and how our money is spent, and would be able to steer the economy with greater precision.

Here’s a thought: if this scenario was already the status quo, and it was now proposed to turn our nations’ money supply over to commercial corporations (banks), whose mandate it is to maximise profit, as debt-based money, there would be pandemonium on the streets!

Money is an abstract concept — designed by humans to serve humanity’s needs. Let’s make it do this well. It is not a law of nature to have a debt-backed money system: it can be redesigned. The present design is not working well, and as Albert Einstein said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”.

Please support politicians embracing sovereign money and share this information — an excellent source of further material is Positive Money NZ (www.positivemoney.org.nz), the NZ chapter of the International Movement for Monetary Reform (www.internationalmoneyreform.org).
*(“The reality of how money is created today differs from the description found in some economics textbooks. Money creation in practice differs from some popular misconceptions — banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them, and nor do they ‘multiply up’ central bank money to create new loans and deposits.” — Bank of England. However, the result is similar: when making loans, new money enters the economy, whichever method one has been taught)