The arrest of Roman Polanski by the Swiss government — and I say this without any sarcasm — is becoming more and more a model case for international legal cooperation. Polanski’s recent request to be sentenced in absentia is just more proof of that. It is safe to say that the film director showed a degree of cooperation which would not have been possible before.Read More »

The Swiss trading company “Glencore” is cooperating with Israel and reducing oil supplies to Iran while continuing to ship to Israel in order to force Iran to negotiate over its nuclear  program, according to the Paris-based Intelligence Online newsletter. “Although it doesn’t hesitate to deal with countries even more isolated than Iran, Glencore appears to have abandoned Tehran in favor of one of its oldest and most loyal customers, Israel,” the newsletter said.Read More »

The Independent (South Africa), Nov 20, 2009

By Fiona Forde

Daniel Ammann had been knocking on Marc Rich’s door for more than seven years, but the notorious billionaire fugitive financier refused to budge. “I used to write. Then send faxes and emails, a few times a year,” the 45-year-old Swiss business journalist recalls, but the answer was always the same: “No interviews.” But all that changed in December 2006 when the infamous commodities trader who had done business with brutal dictatorships and regimes, South Africa’s among them, agreed to talk. “It’s because of age and maturity,” he would later tell Ammann.Read More »

Marc Rich Meets Che, Bribes Thugs, Regrets Nothing

Review by A. Craig Copetas The King of Oil

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) — Long ago, in the courtrooms of ancient Athens, hubris was a crime and judges weren’t shy about convicting. Sometimes the penalty was left in the hands of a higher authority. “After hubris,” the saying went, “comes Nemesis,” the goddess of justice Zeus appointed to visit Earth in the form of a goose. Not even King Croesus was able to buy Nemesis off.

“The King of Oil,” by Daniel Ammann, is the mostly familiar tale of how the infamous American, Israeli and Spanish multibillionaire commodity trader Marc Rich — the inventor of the spot-oil market and for nearly two decades the most-wanted white-collar fugitive in America — did what Croesus could not and cooked the goose.

Ammann’s biography, written with Rich’s cooperation, is a briskly paced primer on how to get off the hook, a must-read for any businessman facing federal indictment and a guaranteed tear- jerker for the U.S. white-collar prison population.Read More »

By JAD MOUAWAD – Marc Rich, the former fugitive oil trader long criticized for his business ties to nations like Iran, South Africa and Cuba, has acknowledged in a new book that his dealings with those nations were more extensive than previously disclosed.

In more than 30 hours of conversations with a Swiss journalist, Daniel Ammann, the usually tight-lipped Mr. Rich gave an extensive account of his oil trading from the 1970s through the 1990s.Read More »

T

With so many books in the stores, we’re often asked for recommendations. Here’s a list of recent nonfiction books.

“The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich” by Daniel Ammann. Published by St. Martin’s Press.

This biography, written with the cooperation of the infamous multibillionaire commodity trader Marc Rich, is a briskly paced primer on how to get off the hook, a must-read for any businessman facing federal indictment and a guaranteed tear- jerker for the U.S. white-collar prison population. It’s a psychological thriller and a gleeful celebration of asocial justice and why the sound application of money will always beat the odds and embarrass the gods.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-05-27/top-50-business-books-animal-spirits-to-what-the-dog-saw-

A month ago Bloomberg already named The King of Oil one of the five best Business Books of recent months:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aqAwrR2ip2lM

(South Africa, November 1, 2009) The King of Oil

Marc Rich, the international oil dealer once wanted in the US for trading with the enemy until pardoned by President Bill Clinton, secretly satisfied nearly all of apartheid South Africa’s oil demands for more than a decade in spite of international oil embargoes, and then continued doing business with the Mandela government after apartheid collapsed, according to a new book.Read More »

(South Africa, November 1, 2009) The King of Oil

Marc Rich, an international oil dealer once wanted in the US for trading with the enemy until pardoned by US president Bill Clinton, secretly provided nearly all of apartheid South Africa’s oil demands for more than a decade despite international embargoes, says a new book. By Dave Chambers.Read More »

Taylor Conant, EconomicPolicyJournal.com, Nov 1, 2009

The popular telling of the myth of the crimes of Marc Rich almost perfectly captures the modern American zeitgeist– a businessman, the most evil and exploitative kind of villain that can plague a nation of honest and earnest people, sought to earn a profit via oil trades with the enemy (post-Revolution Iran) during a time of national crisis and embargo (the embarrassingly stupid hostage situation in Tehran circa 1979), evaded his tax obligations and then had the sheer nerve (or perhaps deep well of pure, black hatred within his heart) to refuse to stand trial for his crimes by fleeing to neutral Switzerland, using his enormous, illegally-acquired and not to mention positively unsightly personal wealth to buy himself immunity — and eventually a full pardon — from a criminal justice system to which lesser mortals must pay heed.Read More »

Marc Rich, the billionaire financier infamously pardoned by Bill Clinton, says he’s never returning to the United States. Rich fled to Switzerland in the 1980s after charges of tax evasion and claims it’s still not safe to set foot in this country. U.S. authorities “would look for some excuse to apprehend me,” Rich says in a new book by journalist Daniel Ammann. “They might still have an unpaid parking ticket of mine from 30 years ago.” Hmmm … fugitive in exile, Swiss authorities — maybe he should visit Roman Polanski at his undisclosed location?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2009/10/this_just_in_101.html

October 11, 2009

President Clinton set off a furor by granting him a pardon. But, even after 26 years in exile, billionaire Marc Rich vows he will “never” set foot in America again.

Rich, who fled to Switzerland rather than face prosecution for tax evasion and trading with the enemy, says in a new bio that the public outcry over the pardon told him it still isn’t safe to come home.

“[U.S. authorities] would look for some excuse to apprehend me,” the elusive commodities trading wizard tells Daniel Ammann in “The King of Oil.” “They might still have an upaid parking ticket of mine from 30 years ago.”Read More »

By Steve LeVine*, October 16, 2009

John Deuss lived a heady 1980s. This Dutchman of proverbial humble roots in the eastern Netherlands city of Nijmegen became worth hundreds of millions of dollars by ignoring a United Nations boycott and shipping Middle East oil to South Africa. Read More »

A NEW READ ON JEWISH LIFE

The United States offers at least as much to those who crave profits as it does to those who follow prophets. Marc Rich falls into the former camp: born in Belgium, he arrived in New York in 1942 with his parents at the age of eight, and soon set his sights on amassing a world-class fortune. He did so, in part, by trading commodities with Iran, Cuba, Angola, and South Africa; his convictions for such dealings and for tax evasion were famously pardoned by Bill Clinton. In The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich (St. Martin’s, October), Daniel Ammann calls the elusive billionaire’s story “both typically American and typically Jewish,” and describes Rich’s willingness to help out the Mossad on occasion through his extensive network of contacts in Iran and Syria.

The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich. Ammann, Daniel (author). Oct. 2009. 320p. illus. hardcover, $26.99 (9780312570743). 381. 
REVIEW.

Marc Rich came to the U.S. as a poor Jewish Holocaust refugee and became one of the world’s richest and most powerful commodities traders, single-handedly breaking the lock on the oil market held by the cartel of Big Oil by inventing the first fully functioning spot oil market. Yet he is not known the world over for his vast entrepreneurial achievements, but rather for fleeing the country in 1983 to avoid charges of tax evasion, and for the controversial last-minute pardon by President Clinton in 2001. For the first time, Rich speaks out about his career, his private life, and the case that cost him his reputation, his wife, and his company. Ammann gives a fair and balanced portrait of this shrewd businessman, who was attacked for political gain by zealous prosecutors, vilified in the media, and dogged by U.S. Marshals, who attempted for 17 years to kidnap him illegally. While the moral debate about Rich’s activities will surely continue, Ammann presents a compelling story of a life of intrigue, espionage, and brazen chutzpah. David Siegfried

Ammann, Daniel. The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich. St. Martin’s. Oct. 2009. c.320p. illus. index. ISBN 978-0-312-57074-3. $26.99. BUS

Swiss journalist Ammann surely got the scoop of his career when notorious commodities trader Marc Rich agreed to meet with him, which resulted in this remarkable book. Rich fled to Switzerland in 1983 to avoid prosecution for tax fraud; President Clinton’s last-day pardon of Rich ignited a firestorm of controversy. As Ammann rightly claims, very little was known about this “most successful and controversial commodities trader the world has ever seen.” He offers rare insight into Rich’s youth in a Belgian Jewish family who narrowly escaped the Nazis, shows how Rich became involved in the earliest stages of commodities trading, and credits him with inventing the “spot oil market,” which ultimately ended control by the “seven sisters” cartel companies (hence the book’s title). But it’s in regard to Rich’s involvement with foreign countries, especially Israel, that Ammann provides the most significant new disclosures. Is Rich a rogue or a philanthropic businessman? Ammann lets readers draw their own conclusion.

VERDICT This book reads like a cross between a rags-to-riches saga and a cloak-and-dagger thriller, but it’s also an excellent and timely primer on the world of commodities trading within a global economy and will greatly appeal to readers interested in current events. — Richard Drezen, Brooklyn, NY

The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich Daniel Ammann. St. Martin’s. $26.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-57074-3

An empathetic look at the notorious Marc Rich, one of the most successful and controversial commodities traders in recent history and a key figure in the invention of the spot market. With unparalleled access to Rich, his family and associates, business journalist Ammann paints a nuanced portrait of the man vilified for trading with Iran and apartheid-era South Africa, accused of being the biggest tax fraudster in U.S. history and recipient of an infamous presidential pardon. At the pinnacle of his power, Rich presided over a multinational empire, and his opinion on “key people in power” in various “rogue” nations was routinely, if clandestinely, sought by the State Department despite his criminal status. Rich has scrupulously guarded his personal history, but Ammann reveals the struggle it was—from his family’s escape from the Holocaust through their internment in a North African refugee camp to their bitter years as immigrants in the U.S. in the aftermath of WWII. This meticulous account sets the record straight on a reluctant public figure who lost in the court of public opinion, but escaped being tried in a court of law. Photos. (Oct.)

MUST READ: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

EconomicPolicyJournal.com

Okay, we have a must read book in September, Ron Paul’s End the Fed. It’s due out September 16.

Now comes word that, in October, an authorized biography of Marc Rich is due out, The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc RichRead More »

U.S. law takes precedence: thanks to this principle and massive financial penalties, the United States has also forced Marc Rich on his knees.

The American oil dealer Marc Rich, living in Zug, got into the crosshairs of the U.S. authorities in the beginning of the eighties. The United States accused him of profiting from untaxed income of 100 million U.S. dollars at his Swiss company, and therefore claimed 48 million U.S. dollars in tax payments.

Rich denied the claim. Then a district court judge in New York asked Marc Rich & Co. AG to submit all business documents concerning the oil deals. There were hundreds of thousands of pages. Rich refused. The judge, therefore, punished him with a fine of 50,000 dollars per day. Read More »