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Earth Day 2010! April 22nd, 2010
April 22nd marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever. While climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, it also presents the greatest opportunity – an unprecedented opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous, clean energy economy now and for the future. Consumption patterns also pose a threat. Today’s consumption is undermining the environmental resource base and exacerbating inequalities.
Daniel LeBlanc, OMI – now in Bolivia for the Alternative Climate Summit sent the following for our contemplation and action on Earth Day:
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Citigroup Faith-Based Shareholders Call on US Government to Vote Its Shares in Favor of Derivatives Reform April 17th, 2010
Faith-based institutional investors are urging the Obama Administration to send the same message to Wall Street that it is sending to Congress on financial reform. The United States government controls 27 percent of outstanding Citigroup shares, and faith-based shareholders say the US should support their Resolution urging the company to provide more disclosure about its derivatives trading. Voting will take place Tuesday morning at the Citigroup Annual Meeting in New York. The groups, which include the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, are members of the 300-member Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR).
Rev. Seamus Finn, OMI, actively engaged in pressing financial institutions for greater transparency and accountability and an ICCR board member, said, “The U.S. government controls over a quarter of outstanding Citigroup shares today. It has an extraordinary opportunity here to send a clear message to Wall Street that more derivatives disclosure is vital. Even more to the point, the Treasury Department really has no choice other than to support our resolution since a failure to do so would directly undercut its campaign for critical financial reform.”
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RiskMetrics and Proxy Governance Support ICCR Shareholder Proposal on Derivatives April 7th, 2010
RiskMetrics and Proxy Governance, respected proxy advisory services, in a significant move, have supported the Resolution on derivatives filed by religious investors, including the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The Resolution filed by members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) requests that the company provide greater disclosure regarding derivatives as a way to reduce systemic risk in the financial sector.
A lack of transparency in derivatives holdings was responsible in large part for destabilizing the financial system in 2008. Specifically, the shareholder proposal filed with Citibank requests the company to report to shareholders on the firm’s policy concerning the company’s derivative activities. The religious groups have expressed concerns for years about the risk inherent in derivatives trading, arguing that greater transparency is needed.
The full text of the shareholder proposal is available here…
Religious Proposal on Swaps Disclosure Gets Attention April 6th, 2010
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. aren’t doing “God’s work” when it comes to derivatives, according to investor groups of nuns and priests. The investors were referring to a remark made last November by Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein’s who said he was a banker doing “God’s work”
“The use of these instruments, if they’re not disclosed by the dealers and the information made available, by their very nature can contribute to systemic risk,” said Father Seamus Finn, a director with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Washington, D.C., one of the co-sponsors of the resolutions.
Shareholders will vote starting this month on proposals sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth and 14 other religious organizations, asking Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. to give more information on the collateral used in their derivatives trading.
It’s the first time the four banks, among the largest U.S. swaps dealers, will put to a nonbinding vote a call to explain how collateral of derivatives customers is used and to keep it from other accounts. Congress is considering bills that would require more derivatives deals be processed through clearinghouses, privately owned third parties that guarantee transactions and keep track of collateral and margin.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in February and March decisions, backed the religious groups’ bid to put the proposal up for a vote by shareholders of JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup. New York-based Goldman Sachs, the most profitable firm in Wall Street history, agreed separately to add the resolution to its proxy statement.
Articles on this proposal appeared late last week in Bloomberg and Bloomberg Business Week. Read the full story here…
Protection of Khasi Villages Overturned by Court Order March 19th, 2010
A January victory by the Khasi people in stopping logging on their lands has been overturned by a High Court decision issued in late February. Four indigenous villages in Bangladesh, with their 500 Khasi residents, will be destroyed if logging by a local tea estate owner is allowed to continue.
An Oblate priest, Fr. Joseph Gomes, OMI, along with other colleagues from the environmental community have been working with the Khasi people to protect the forest and their villages. We urge all parties in a position to do so, to raise serious concerns with the Government of Bangladesh regarding this situation.
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