BP and Goldman Sachs – The Appropriate Whipping Boys

Not suprisingly there are some interesting connections between America’s favorite Whipping Boys Goldman Sachs and BP. 

Peter Sutherland:

According to his September 2009 bio:

Peter Sutherland is chairman of BP plc (1997 – current). He is also chairman of Goldman Sachs International (1995 – current). He was appointed chairman of the London School of Economics in 2008…. Before these appointments, he was the founding director-general of the World Trade Organisation. He had previously served as director general of GATT since July 1993 [and was] chairman of the Board of Governors of the European Institute of Public Administration (Maastricht) 1991-1996.

Sutherland resigned as BP’s chairman in 2009, but apparently still serves in various key capacities.

Sutherland is managing director- as well as chairman – of Goldman Sachs International (Goldman Sachs International is the very powerful subsidiary of the Goldman Sachs Group, of which Lloyd Blankfein is CEO). Sutherland is also an Advisory Director of the Goldman Sachs Group itself.

And he was is European Chairman for the Trilateral Commission.

He has, at various times, attended meetings of the Bilderberg group.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/chairman-of-goldman-sachs-international.html 

But the fun does not end there.

The brokerage firm that’s faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP.

According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 sharesof BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman’s sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP’s stock during the quarter.

If Goldman had sold these shares today, their investment would have lost 36 percent its value, or $96 million. The share sales represented 44 percent of Goldman’s holdings — meaning that Goldman’s remaining holdings have still lost tens of millions in value.

 

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0602/month-oil-spill-goldman-sachs-sold-250-million-bp-stock/

Not so strange bedfellows.  If Goldman Sachs has not had a prior history of manipulation from the housing market to the Greek debt crisis one may not suspect malfeasance like insider trading, collusion or conspiracy.  Some mainstream media commentators have even had whispers of industrial sabotage.  With such a dubious past and a horrific current record, BP and Goldman Sachs should expect such questions to continue.

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Posted by Andrew McCleese on Jun 10 2010. Filed under Web-Only Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.