Benefits April 29, 2010

Massage Parlor Didn’t Bare All about Job Requirements

April 29, 2010 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A former employee of a massage business in Australia has been fined $1,500 after admitting to misleading jobseekers by failing to reveal they would be mostly naked and massage naked men.
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The former employee of Bikini Girls Massage pleaded guilty in the Perth Magistrates Court to two counts of conduct liable to mislead in relation to employment, a breach of the Fair Trading Act, according to the Australian Associated Press. The Western Australia consumer protection commissioner alleged job vacancy ads in community newspapers disguised the true nature of the work, which involved female staff wearing bikinis while massaging naked or mostly naked men.

The commissioner’s lawyer described the recruitment practices as predatory and the chief magistrate expressed concern over the use of phrases like ‘health salon’ in ads really recruiting for massage parlors.

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Consumer Protection has also charged the alleged operators of Bikini Girls, Bon Levi and Colin Burton, on multiple counts of misleading advertising – Levi faces 91 charges and Burton faces 14 charges, the AAP said. They are due to face trial on September 1, and both have pleaded not guilty.

Administration April 29, 2010

Goldman Sachs E-mail Shows Harvard on Losing End of Trade

April 29, 2010 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – An e-mail released by the U.S. Senate indicates Goldman Sachs executives knew clients would lose in a large trade in mortgage-backed securities.
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The Boston Globe reports that in a February 14, 2007, message detailing the decline of high-risk subprime mortgages, Goldman executive Daniel Sparks wrote to colleagues: “That is good for us position-wise, bad for accounts who wrote that protection.’’ He cited Harvard University and three others as being on the losing end of a $500 million derivatives trade.

The e-mail indicates Goldman’s chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, was sent a copy, according to the Globe.

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Harvard spokesman John Longbrake confirmed the university made the investment. “The investment referenced in the e-mail was deliberately unwound, and was part of an investment strategy that is no longer pursued,” he said.

The school in fiscal 2008 lost 27% of its $37 billion endowment and another $1.8 billion in operating cash because of bad investments (see Harvard Endowment Slammed with $11B FY Loss). Harvard also paid $500 million to get out of interest-rate swaps that failed when rates fell instead of rising (see Harvard Reports Large Cash Loss).

In the year of the Goldman trade, fiscal 2007, the endowment posted a gain of 23%.

Mohamed A. El-Erian, who was running the endowment at the time, declined to comment to the Globe.

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