The Fearless Independence of the Editora Abril and Other Tall Tales of Its Kind

Blog da Cidadania‘s Edu Guimarães is a leading figure in the self-styled «progessive blogsphere» here in Brazil.  He writes, Some days ago, a friend of mine employed by the Editora Abril phoned me to describe his worries over the scandal involving the newsweekly Veja — that is to say, involving the possibility that group publisher Roberto [...]

Todd-Frank and The Risco Brazil

Source: Folha de S. Paulo | 19/02/2012 In an item on financial market regulation in today’s Folha, the São Paulo daily appears to be mistaken or confused about the Dodd-Frank Act of 2011  when it summarizes legal provisions that actually belong to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Dodd-Frank deals extensively with oversight of trading, banking and [...]

The Prospectus Wire | Prospects Are Dim

Boring things I do to keep myself occupied while certain matters, out of my hands, remain pending: Prospectus Wire | Prospects Dim | Sousaphone Semantics. It never hurts to test your literary brain, honed on Guimarães-Rosa, on the Jarndyce-like complexities of an OPA prospectus, with its red herring and tortuous pagination and x-referencing … This [...]

Senator Kátia “I See No Death Squads Here” Abréu | Paragon of Public Morality

The information service of the Confederação da Agricultura e Pecuária do Brasil – the CNA,, the agribusiness syndicate — helpfully places events in context. A series of five murders of agrarian reform activists in recent weeks, according to CNA President and federal Senator Kátia Abréu, are being milked to promote a political agenda and avert attention from [...]

The Sacrifice of Isaias and the Latin American Guilty Plea

More like a hard slog toward lawfulness … I admit freely that of all the Andean-Bolivarian leaders, the somewhat nerdy University of Illinois economist running Ecuador, Rafael Correa, is the only one with my unconditional admiration. I have spent a fairly inadequate amount of time studying the debt crisis that gripped the country for over [...]

Brazilian ASCAP Faces Antitrust Probe

Six of us see the sequel to Elite Squad for about USD$2. To see it in the theatre might have cost USD$70.  Ever since the incoming Minister of Culture took a firm stance against heavily promoted alternative models of global copyright such as Creative Commons — though not necessarily copyleft — her supposed ties to [...]

Riding Palocci: Ratfinking the Minister of Money

Many have commented that the first 100 days of the current government here have been relatively free of scandal, but in fact one has been building for quite some time now. It is less noticeable because it deals with macroeconomic stability rather than children born out of wedlock. It would take some time to prepare, [...]

G-Men Swarm the Bovespa!

DATELINE: SAMBODIA — Yesterday’s Valor Econômico carried a special section on law enforcement cooperation and financial crimes investigation training provided by the SEC and FBI to Brazilian federal police and the native securities regulator, the CVM. The key analysis is translated from an article by Jonathan Weil of Bloomberg, who excoriates the PCAOB as a [...]

Novos Mercados-Máquinas: IBM e Febraban?

Aí, o jeito que o tempo têm de complicar as coiss. No meio da década dos 2000, eu editava um jornalzinho sobre a indústria financeira. Tinha meu gabinete quase na esquina da Rua Wall com Water. Na época, a NYSE — a Bolsa de Nova York — era a NYSE que sempre tinha sido, ou [...]

BMFBovespa-MervalNEXT: Autoreg to Take Effect

Valor Online: In 90 days, a new autoregulation scheme for the BM&F-Bovespa goes into effect. I gistlate — translate a little here, gist a list there — the brief item, although I am sure you probably already read about it from Mondo Visione. The self-regulator, not dissimilar to NYSE Regulation, is known as the BSM, [...]