World Gold Council doesn't necessarily share GATA's views

By Clara Denina
FastMarkets.com
via TheBullionDesk.com
Thursday, December 31, 2009

LONDON -- The World Gold Council (WGC) respects the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee's right to hold views relating to the U.S. Federal Reserve's records of its gold market interventions but it does not share them, it said on Thursday.

"GATA has its own views on the factors driving the gold price and the influence of gold market participants," Matt Graydon, WGC head of communications, said. "These views are well known in the market. The World Gold Council respects the right of GATA to hold these views but does not necessarily share them."

The GATA committee has launched a lawsuit against the US Federal Reserve board, seeking a court order to disclose the central bank's records of its market intervention to suppress the monetary metal's price, it said in an earlier press release.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, targets the Fed's records involving gold swaps and exchanges of gold with foreign financial
institutions, it added.

"The Fed has claimed that its gold swap records involve 'trade secrets' exempt from disclosure under the US Freedom of Information Act," GATA said.

The WGC refuses to question governments about their surreptitious interventions in the gold market, GATA also alleged.

"These interventions powerfully influence not only gold's price but the prices of government bonds and currencies, as well as interest rates generally and the value of all capital and labour in the world," GATA said. "There is no more important issue in the world economy than gold price suppression."

In a letter to GATA's legal representatives in September, the Fed board of governors acknowledged that it has gold swap agreements with foreign banks but insisted that such documents remain secret.

"Information in the possession of an agency is exempt from disclosure if it falls within one or more of the enumerated FOIA exemptions," Kevin Warsh, a Federal Reserve System board member, said.

"Exemption 4 permits agencies to withhold 'trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential,'" he added.

The Federal Reserve's intervention in the gold market constitutes a huge deception of financial markets as well as expropriation of precious metals miners and investors particularly, GATA secretary/treasurer Chris Powell claimed.

GATA, formed in 1999, believes that central banks have significantly overstated the quantity of physical gold they apparently hold and believe that these central banks and governments collude to manipulate prices.

* * *

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16