BIS Refuses To Answer Questions About Its Activity In The Gold Market

The Bank for International Settlements today refused to answer questions from the Gold Anti-Trust Anti-Trust Action Committee about the bank's activity in the gold market.

On Monday your secretary/treasurer wrote to the bank's public information office calling attention to GATA consultant Robert Lambourne's latest analysis of the bank's October statement of account involving gold, which Lambourne construed to show a substantial increase in the bank's use of gold swaps.

Your secretary/treasurer wrote:

"Dear BIS Press Office:

"On November 12 the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. published an analysis by its consultant, Robert Lambourne, of the recent increase in gold swaps undertaken by the Bank for International Settlements:

http://www.gata.org/node/17790

"Could you please tell me whether this analysis is correct or, if it is in error in any way, how so?

"Could you also please tell me the BIS' purpose and objectives with these gold swaps and with the bank's involvement in the gold and gold derivatives markets generally?

"Thanks for your help."

GATA received this unsigned response from the BIS today:

"Dear Sir,

"Many thanks for your e-mail enquiry.

"We do not comment on specific accounts / holdings of central banks or of the BIS. Please see our latest annual report for details on gold. Further information can be gleaned from central banks directly.

"With kind regards

"BIS
Communications
4002 Basel, Switzerland
Telephone: +41 61 280 81 88
E-mail: [email protected]
www.bis.org"

But the bank does comment on its gold business when the inquiry comes from a source that is important enough.

For as Lambourne noted in his analysis November 12, in a report published in the Financial Times on July 29, 2010, the bank's general manager himself, Jaime Caruana, discussed the bank's gold swaps and said they were "regular commercial activities" for the bank:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e659ed0-9b39-11df-baaf-00144feab49a.html

As for the assertion by the BIS press office that "further information can be gleaned from central banks directly," the last few seconds of this video shows what happened when, at the end of a presentation at Virginia Military Institute on March 31, 2016, a GATA supporter asked the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley, about the Fed's involvement in gold swaps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0JYoJ_rKxQ&t=14s

No information at all was available from Dudley.

For as was explained by the secret March 1999 report of the staff of the International Monetary Fund, central banks conceal their gold swaps and leases to facilitate their surreptitious interventions in the gold and currency markets:

http://www.gata.org/node/12016

The BIS' refusal to respond to GATA and to validate or reject Lambourne's analysis of the bank's latest statement of account in regard to gold confirms GATA's belief that bringing central banks to account and restoring democracy and free markets require financial journalists to find the courage to do their job and the monetary metals mining industry to stand up for itself and its investors.

If you know any financial journalists or if you're invested in any monetary metals mining companies, please forward this to them.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
[email protected]

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