"We will meet representatives of mutual fund industry and Sebi officials and will advise them to consider measures including re-introduction of entry load to revive the fortunes of mutual fund industry," a senior finance ministry official said. The ministry officials will meet mutual fund industry representatives and Sebi officials on Monday.
The entry load- 2.25% commission paid to distributors- was banned in 2009 by former Sebi chief CB Bhave, who felt investors were being taken for a ride by distributors who encouraged investors to churn their portfolios. The ban, however, led to drying up of inflows into funds.
The meeting comes close on the heels of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement on Wednesday that there were problems facing the mutual fund industry that needed to be resolved.
Lesser investment in mutual fund products and other saving instruments have prompted higher money flow to gold, which has pushed up the current account deficit of the country due to rising imports of the commodity.
To restrict the investment flow to gold, which is considered as a dead investment, the government is now planning to make mutual fund schemes attractive for retail investors.
L&G to offer social housing loans - Financial Times
July 1, 2012 9:52 pm
Former judge faces 'Mafia money laundering' charges as he and three other Britons are extradited to Italy - Daily Mail
- Four men are being extradited under controversial European Arrest Warrant
- They include Colin Dines, a 68-year-old former judge
- Accused of using companies they run to launder Mafia money
- Men insist they're innocent and have never been shown the evidence against them
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Four British men, including a retired judge, are being extradited to Italy to face Mafia money laundering charges.
Colin Dines, 68, his son Andrew, 31, and their colleagues Andrew Neave, 44, and Paul O’Connor, 41 are accused of using companies they run to launder Mafia money.
They intend to plead not guilty, insisting they are completely innocent - but face spending 18 months in jail with hardened criminals before their case even comes to trial.
The men are being extradited under a controversial European Arrest Warrent (EAW) system that allows foreign authorities to demand suspects without providing any evidence against them.
Retired judge Colin Dines, centre, with his son Andrew and wife Sarah. The two men are being extradited to Italy on Mafia money laundering charges
The case is the latest in a string of controversial extraditions enforced using EAW’s. which were introduced in 2002 by the EU, following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The warrants were intended as a means to deal with terror suspects in other countries, but critics claim they are being abused to arrest and extradite people accused of far lesser offences, many of whom are innocent.
Parliamentary figures back up the suggestion, revealing Britain surrenders 11 people under EAWs for every one brought to the UK - prompting Conservative MP Dominic Raab to campaign against the unfair use of the warrants.
Mr Neave was put on an flight from Heathrow to Rome on Friday.
The other three men are expected to join him over the coming days - including Mr Dines snr, a former criminal barrister, who spent eight years as a judge in courts across London and the South East -
They will then be held at Rebibbia prison on the outskirts of the capital, where they face a wait of a year and a half before they get the chance to prove their innocence in court.
The four men are alleged to be involved in a 344 million money laundering scheme, through London-based commodity brokerage and telecoms firms companies they run.
It’s claimed the companies engaged in carousel VAT fraud in Italy - acting as ‘fictitious clients so that money generated by the fraud was laundered through the companies’ accounts.’
They were arrested in February 2010 in a raid on their homes by officers from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) armed with European Arrest Warrents issued by a magistrate in Italy.
Incarcerated: The four men face spending 18 months in Rome's Rebibbia Prison before their case even comes to trial
Their assets were frozen and restraining orders were placed on their homes, to stop them from being sold.
The men, who have nine children between them, are particularly concerned about the fate of their families - who have only been able to draw 300 a week from their frozen assets
They fought extradition but lost that battle in January 2011, when Westminster magistrates ruled they should travel to Italy to face trial for involvement in what an Italian judge described as a ‘transnational criminal organisation consisting of more than 10 people' and 'complicit in money laundering.’
They appealed and appeared at the High Court in February before Lord Justice Hooper, a former colleague of Mr Dines', who denied the appeal, insisting there was sufficient evidence to warrant further investigation.
Last ditch approaches to the European Court of Human Rights and Home Secretary Theresa May failed and the extradition is going ahead - despite the fact the men claim they have never been charged or shown any evidence against them.
Mr Dines snr, from Slapton, Devon, told the Telegraph: ‘We were dragged out of bed at 5am, yet we’ve never been questioned by the prosecutors in the case. We have never been charged or shown details of the case against us. As a result we have not been able to put up any defence.’
Speaking before his extradition, he added: ‘We have conducted our business dealings with the Italian companies impeccably, but the investigating magistrate looking into them on another matter came across our names on a number of documents. As a result, instead of coming over here and talking to us about it, he has sought a warrant for our arrest.
‘We will be thrown into Rome’s worst prison for what our Italian lawyers say could be up to six months before being charged and another year of pretrial detention. Italy has the worst legal system in Europe, where the standard practice is to threaten and induce detainees in order to obtain admission of guilt in exchange for a reduced sentence. It’s worse than plea bargaining, because we are going to be locked up in a foreign country without access to proper legal representation, no bail and our assets frozen.'
Dukes tells Noonan: ‘I won’t reply in writing’ - Daily Mail
By Ken Foxe
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Chairman Alan Dukes, pictured, wrote to Mr Noonan saying he was not prepared to divulge any information by letter
The chairman of the former Anglo Irish Bank told Finance Minister Michael Noonan that he would not put anything in writing regarding the controversy over the bank’s relationship with developer Paddy McKillen.
Chairman Alan Dukes wrote to Mr Noonan saying he was not prepared to divulge any information by letter for fear the correspondence would enter the public domain through a Freedom of Information request. Instead, Mr Dukes – a former Fine Gael leader – suggested ‘a private conversation’ regarding the controversy.
No records, memos, or minutes of the discussion between Mr Dukes and Mr Noonan were kept, raising concerns that the Department of Finance was party to efforts to circumvent FoI legislation.
In the discussion, Mr Noonan was assured that the State-owned bank would take more care with how it communicated with its clients in future.
The controversy arose because private communications – in this case text messages – became public. They emerged during Mr McKillen’s high-profile court action against the billionaire Barclay Brothers over control of three prestigious London hotels.
The texts were sent by Mike Aynsley, chief executive of IBRC – the newly created bank that amalgamates Anglo and Irish Nationwide.
No records, memos, or minutes of the discussion between Mr Dukes and Mr Noonan, pictured, were kept
Mr Aynsley, sent texts to Mr McKillen saying the bank had decided to back him in the case rather than the Barclays, who were being backed by NAMA. One of the texts said: ‘Please keep that confidential. I can’t have board positions like this leaking out.’
Sinn Fin’s Gerry Adams said it was unacceptable that Mr Dukes and Mr Noonan were involved in efforts to withhold public-interest information about a State-owned bank.
Sinn Fin's Gerry Adams said it was unacceptable that efforts were made to withhold public-interest information
He said: ‘IBRC is 100% publicly owned, €34.7bn of citizens’ money has been poured into it. Citizens are entitled to know what’s going on.
‘This kind of secrecy and lack of transparency caused the crisis in the first place.’
Mr Dukes was appointed to Anglo in December 2009, first as a public interest director and later as chairman. He is now chairman of IBRC.
He is paid €150,000 a year.
A statement from the bank said: ‘Alan Dukes is committed to operating to the mandate given by the bank’s shareholder, which is to run the bank in the public interest at all times.
‘Mr Dukes also, however, has a strict legal obligation not to disclose confidential details of the bank’s dealings with individual borrowers,’ the statement added.
The Department of Finance said all correspondence between Mr Noonan and Mr Dukes had been released in accordance with FoI but that no records were kept of Mr Noonan’s discussion with Mr Dukes.
A spokesman said: ‘There is no question of the minister or the department avoiding record-keeping to circumvent the FoI Act.’
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