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April 29,
Gavin
Keeney
So
Long, Frank O. Gehry?
April 28, 2002
Michael Neumann
The Jewish Left and Palestine
April 27, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
Adelphia
Going Down:
Cover Ups, Censorship
and Naughty Accounting
Jordy Cummings
Stuck Inside the Journalism School
Pyramid
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Set
This Flag on Fire!
April 26, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Act
Now to Stop the Killing
of an Innocent Man
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Anti-Bribery
Law Takes a Hit
Tariq Ali
Letter to a Young Muslim
April 25, 2002
Francis
A. Boyle
Home
Brew? Biowarfare,
Terror Weapons and the US
Adam Federman
"And the Earth Wept"
Bush at Saranac Lake
Stanton
and Madsen
US
Media Interests:
Champions of Profit, Propaganda and Puffery
Aaron Hawley
Cop a Buzz Day in Vermont:
Education v. Incarceration
David
Vest
Code
Red: Politics and Wordplay at the Vatican
Bernard Weiner
Time Out! A Pause for Longer-Range
Thinking
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Standing
with the Peace Movement
April 24, 2002
David Vest
State of Politics in France:
Code Bleu
Jean Fallow
A20
in Seattle:
Cops Get Rough, Again
Kevin Alexander Gray
Help Save the Life of an Innocent Man:
Ask for Clemency for Ricky Johnson
Tanya
Reinhart
Jenin,
the Propaganda Battle
Todd May
Drowning Children, Palestinians and American
Responsibility
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Loneliest Road
Nir Rosen
The Broken Home:
Revisiting Israel
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
A
Big Blow to Big Tobacco
April 23, 2002
Brian Wood
Where Is the Aid for the Victims in
Jenin?
John Chuckman
I,
George:
Gomer as Claudius
Norman Madarasz
French Presidential Elections
Absenteeism and Le Pen
Dr. Susan
Block
Bernard
Parks, Goodbye:
A Farewell to My Chief
Joan Smith
Who Will Rid Us of
These Pedophile Priests?
April 22, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
EPA
Ombudsman Resigns
in Protest
Dave Marsh
DeskScan: What's Playing
at My House This Week
Ron Jacobs
A20
in DC: Taking the
Message to the Beast's Belly
Kathy Kelly
An Open Letter to
Israeli Soldiers
Irit Katriel
Word
Games and Body Bags
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
We Come for Peace
Daniel
Bar-Tal
Is
There a Way Out?
Occupation, Terror
and Understanding
David Wilson
A Week of Coups, But Now
The Freedom Train Hits Town
Shaik
Ubaid
Today
I Was a Palestinian
April 21, 2002
Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
in DC Protest Say:
"We Are All Palestinians Today"
C.G. Estabrook
Sex and Power in Catholicism
Kathy
Kelly
Gimme
Some Truth Now
A Walk Through Jenin
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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April 29, 2002
Bank Robs Publishers, Vows Repeat
CounterPunch
Wire
"I'm being
mugged by a bank," stated Greg
Bates, publisher at Common Courage Press in Monroe ME. On April
1, Bank One and its subsidiary, American National Bank, seized
$1.2 million belonging to 85 publishers including Common Courage.
On April 23, the bank demanded publishers hand over the same
amount again. It's a demand a bank might make of any business
caught in this situation, not just publishers. Bank One is the
nation's fifth largest bank holding company.
In an effort to resolve the matter quickly,
some publishers tendered a generous offer. It would have allowed
the bank to keep the $1.2 million already taken and be paid an
additional $750,000 of publishers' money over 10 months, amounting
to about 80% of what the bank is after. Bank One turned it down
cold.
"I'm not even a customer of the
bank," expressed Bates in astonishment. "I never borrowed
money from it. I demand that Bank One put the money back immediately.
They knew the money didn't belong to them when they took it.
The bank is relying on forcing small publishers with shallow
pockets to surrender rights to the money. This is like being
stuck in the financial equivalent of a Franz Kafka novel,"
Bates said.
Common Courage and the 85 publishers
use LPC Group as a distributor for their books. LPC had a loan
from the bank, with about $2.7 million outstanding. No publisher
had signed onto the loan. Most if not all were unaware that LPC
had obtained it. The bank acknowledges that LPC was not behind
in loan payments. It recalled the loan after deciding LPC was
a bad credit risk, essentially asking publishers to pony up for
its own bad business choices.
As with every month, on April 1, LPC
deposited a $1.2 million payment it received from an independent
warehouse for sales of the publishers' books. Bank One, from
documents in its possession, knew at the time that the payment
was created from the sale of books owned by the publishers that
were with LPC on consignment. It also knew that $1 million of
the deposit was due to be sent out to publishers. Nonetheless,
it seized the money the day it arrived in LPC's account.
Bank One, still owed another $1.4 million,
wants money from the next sales as well.
"This isn't just our money,"
stated Bates, who so far is out $35,000-his share of the $1.2
million-plus legal fees. "It includes royalties due our
authors. In effect, the bank is stealing from writers, not just
publishers."
Ironically, Common Courage publishes
books about the excesses of corporations, including Merchants
of Misery, which mentions Bank One. "Since hiring Jamie
Dimon as CEO, they've certainly succeeded in taking predatory
lending to the next level," Bates mused. "We are about
to publish a book on Enron, showing that corporate evil is endemic
to the global economy. Now we ourselves are grist for the mill.
It's a pretty high price for the right to say 'I told you so',"
he quipped.
Bank One's position is straightforward.
Yes, the contracts between publishers and LPC all stipulate that
the books belong to the publishers and are under consignment.
But the publishers failed to file forms with state governments
that would have "perfected" the consignment. Had they
done so prior to the loan from the bank in 1999, publishers would
have had first claim to the books and resulting sales. That publishers
were unaware of the loan and had no way of knowing it was about
to be made in '99 is irrelevant, according to the bank.
"Bull feathers," responded
Bates. "Sucking money belonging to others out of an account
is reprehensible. It's as if a traveler momentarily set down
his luggage in an airport. A stranger, who is owed money by the
airport, walks up and grabs the luggage, claiming it as partial
payment for the airport's debt. Bank One's position amounts to
the thief arguing he has a right to the luggage because the traveler
failed to attach a name tag to his possessions," Bates went
on. "Contrary to the bank's view, even a 5 year-old can
tell you who rightfully owns what."
For more information, email or call Greg
Bates at gbates@commoncouragepress.com.
Or contact the bank, Jamie Dimon, CEO,
Bank One, 1 Bank Plaza, Chicago IL, 60670 tel 312-732-4000 http://www.shareholder.com/one/contact-ir.cfm
and its lawyer, Doug Skalka, at Neubert, Pepe and Monteith, 195
Church Street 13th Floor, New Haven, CT 06510, 203-821-2000 email:
dss@npmlaw.com
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