Alaska Pension, McDonalds Lawyer Up | Chief Investment Officer

The Alaska Electrical Pension Fund has sued 13 international banks, alleging rate manipulation, while McDonalds is suing Russia’s Pension Fund, stating it refused to let its employees accumulate their pension over the last 12 months.

The Alaskan fund filed a complaint to the Manhattan Federal Court on Thursday, claiming the banks ran a “secret conspiracy” to set the ISDAfix rate at artificial levels from 2009 to 2012, Bloomberg reported. This action caused billions of dollars of investor losses, the fund claimed.

The ISDAfix is used to set rates for interest rate derivatives and other financial instruments.

The pension fund accused the banks of executing rapid trades just before the rate was set, an action referred to as “banging the close”. This caused brokerage firm ICAP, which was also cited in the filing, to delay processing trades until the banks moved the rate where they wanted, meaning it did not necessarily reflect market activity.

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All of the defendants either declined to comment or did not respond to Bloomberg’s calls, the newswire said.

Elsewhere, McDonalds has sued the Russia Pension Fund—the national fund for all workers in the country—claiming it rejected its company documents and therefore its staff’s benefits have not accumulated since 2013.

Russian newspaper Izvestia reported the restaurant chain had filed at least eight lawsuits against the fund.

“Starting from the third quarter of 2013 and until today, in response to submitted documentation, McDonald’s company receives refusals from Russia’s Pension Fund to accept these documents, which is a direct violation of McDonald’s employees’ rights,” Izvestia quoted McDonald’s Russia Director for Public Relations Svetlana Poliakova as saying.

The fund responded, saying there were errors in the documents it had refused, including spelling mistakes in employees’ names and miscalculations in their salaries.

More than 10 of the 424 McDonalds restaurants operating in Russia have been closed amid tension between the Federation and the West.

Art by Nigel Buchanan

Blackstone topped the overall ranking of North American banks based on prestige and quality of life as the “most prestigious program for budding investment bankers,” according to career research firm Vault.

Ranked by nearly 3,600 banking professionals in North America, Blackstone scored in the top five in quality of life, firm leadership, and business outlook by survey respondents.

Its employees said the firm offers “the opportunity work with the best collective talent on Wall Street” with “unlimited opportunity for responsibility and career progression, with extremely little bureaucracy and corporate nonsense.”

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Goldman Sachs remained at number two for the second year, according to Vault’s survey. While the firm was rated the “cream of the crop” in prestige, it lagged in work-life balance—a quality that is “extremely difficult to achieve, given very high expectations”—despite the new no-work Saturday initiative.

Morgan Stanley stepped up to the number three spot this year, supported by reorganizing efforts and an increased focus on wealth management, the research firm said. However, there’s room for improvement in spite of high profile transactions, including Facebook and Alibaba’s IPOs, the employees said, due to lower than average pay and long hours.

Still suffering from the aftermath of the London Whale scandal, JP Morgan slipped to fourth place from third last year.

Centerview, a New York-based boutique firm, jumped to number five on the rankings with prominent mergers and acquisitions transactions. It also ranked first in compensation and fourth in job satisfaction, according to Vault, beating out well-known top firms.

Quality of life and workforce diversity are also improving on Wall Street, according to Vault.

Survey respondents said work-life balance was better this year than last, largely due to changing workplace policies such as “protected Saturdays.” Its average rating rose almost 3% from 6.9 to 7.09 out of a possible 10.

Diversity scores climbed again this year as firms are increasingly “hiring managers [who] understand the effectiveness of diversity and the need for ideas coming from different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences,” survey participants said.

Since 2010, female diversity scores have risen by 8.1%, ethnic diversity by 7.7%, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender scores by 12.1%.

vault ranking

Source: Vault's 2015 Banking Employers Rankings