Talk:Peter Schiff

RfC: Peter Schiff - Operation Atlantis investigation and subsequent lawsuit against Australian media

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the material under the Investigation, Exoneration, and Lawsuit subheading be edited so that it reads as below, which is as per the edit at Special:Diff/1193525256, such that this becomes the established consensus for this section until such time that alternative consensus is established?

"On June 30, 2022, the Puerto Rico Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCIF) announced they had suspended the operations of Puerto Rico-based Euro Pacific International Bank, which officials said was under suspicion of facilitating money laundering and offshore tax evasion. The OCIF ordered Euro Pacific Bank to be shut down due to insufficient capitol. In a latter settlement the regulators acknowledged the bank did have sufficient cash at hand. Schiff claimed the OCIF actions were due to the allegations by 60 Minutes Australia, The Age newspaper, and the subsequent investigations, saying, "There was no way those allegations were true, but once those stories broke, the bank's business imploded". Operation Atlantis yielded no charges of money laundering or any other illegal activity. In 2022 Schiff filed civil action against the Nine Network and The Age newspaper for defamation over the Australian 60 Minutes interview and subsequent Age articles. On November 21 the civil action was settled. As part of the settlement, Schiff was paid more than $360,000 by Nine Networks and The Age, and all versions of the broadcast were permanently removed by the respondents."

Additionally should the subheading be adjusted such that it reads "Investigation and Lawsuit" instead of "Investigation, Exoneration, and Lawsuit"? TarnishedPath^talk 05:11, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes. Since the conclusion of the lawsuit between Schiff and some Australian media there as been WP:TENDENTIOUS editing from various accounts and IPs who have an agenda of WP:RGW against a certain Australian journalist. They have sought to continuously insert the journalist's name into the article regardless of whether there are WP:RS that justifies it or whether it is WP:DUE or has WP:WEIGHT. The edit as shown in the RfC question was taken from a proposal by another editor in the edit at Special:Diff/1191308813 and then some copy editing done and sources added and then a sentence modified to acknowledge that "In a latter settlement the regulators acknowledged the bank did have sufficient cash at hand". The proposed edit should be adopted per WP:WEIGHT, WP:DUE and WP:BLP. Currently there is a section of a sentence in the article that reads "and awarded all costs potentially excedding [sic] $1 million in total". This conflicts with other parts of the section as the source used for this is using AUS dollars whereas other parts of the sections use US dollars. There has been a suggestion of converting the AUS $1 million to US, however this would be WP:OR as it would not be as simple as just picking out a conversion rate. Which conversion rate would be used? Therefore such a suggestion ought to be rejected. Per the suggested change in subheading, there are no sources in the article that state that Schiff was exonerated, to the contrary it is explicitly stated in reliable sources used in the article that he had to pay fines as part of the outcome Operation Atlantis. TarnishedPath^talk 09:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• No. The proposed text has several deficiencies that I've listed below in the comments section. An additional error documented above by another user is that Mr. Schiff had to pay fines as part of the outcome of Operation Atlantis. This is completely false as also detailed in the comments below. The fine was part of the OCIF investigation which had nothing to do with Operation Atlantis led by J5. I don't understand why we would make text the "established consensus" when the text is demonstrably inaccurate based on the underlying WP:RS? I keep seeing comments about making sure we follow WP:RS but a crucial part of that process is authoring text that is backed up by the reliable source. Mkstokes 12:52, January 6, 2024 (UTC)
• Yes as far as the disputes above go - it seems to reflect how it is covered in the best available sources. I feel like it might be more useful to discuss specific disputes rather than general text, so in particular, do not name the journalist in question (insufficient coverage in RSes for a BLP-sensitive mention that adds little to the article) and do not mention the award of costs unless more / better sourcing can be found; the Sidney Daily Telegraph isn't a great source and it feels undue and strange to leap from higher-quality sources to a tabloid for this one detail. But most importantly, definitely remove exoneration from the heading; the legal system does not generally "exonerate" people, so it is non-neutral wording that would require truly overwhelming usage by the sources before we could use it in the article voice, which does not seem to be in evidence. --Aquillion (talk) 07:01, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, I am not particularly bothered by the content. However, I would suggest rewording it, as it stands the wording and syntax structure is somewhat confusing. RetroCosmos ^{t • c} 07:34, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Remove "exoneration". Could be shortened, otherwise OK The significant fact is that he apparently mismanaged this bank. It failed. It received some undue publicity. The lawsuit was apparently without merit and the settlement is unremarkable. SPECIFICO talk 14:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  None of those statements are accurate. Rather they are statements of opinion. He was not found to have mismanaged his bank. It didn't fail, it was liquidated and all depositors can be made whole without any federal intervention or buyouts. As it was part of two major investigations, the news reports were not undue. If the lawsuit was "without merit" then the judge would have made such a finding and dismissed it. Rather, the judge found that 4 of the 5 respondents defamed him. As for the settlement being unremarkable, that is clearly a statement of opinion. Yet the New York Times felt it was important enough to publish and article about it. Mkstokes (talk) 14:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• Remove "exoneration" Kind of puzzling that an RFC is even needed for this question. A summary similar to what SPEIFICIO posted above would seem to suffice. Hopefully this is headed to a quick close. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 14:05, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Remove "exoneration" per most of the above. The summary is appropriate, but 'exoneration' is not. Settlement generally has no preclusive effect in law because the motives and circumstances involved can vary so greatly. While Wikipedia is not a court of law, I think there is wisdom in that. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:16, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment I have removed the line "Operation Atlantis yielded no charges of money laundering or any other illegal activity". from the article as it is out of place with the rest of the material which mostly flows from the OCIF suspending operations of the bank and then unto the lawsuit. Operation Atlantis and the OCIF activities concerning the bank were two separate things. Quite a few votes above have expressed that the material should be further trimmed/summarised and I hope this is suitable. TarnishedPath^talk 23:26, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment The New York Times says here that "an Australian judge found that a report by the Nine Entertainment television program had defamed Mr. Schiff." It later says "The settlement also required Nine to pay legal and court costs to Mr. Schiff and take down the “60 Minutes” report. In a statement, Nine said it supported its journalists and that “60 Minutes” accepted the judge’s ruling. The articles, which were found not to be defamatory, will remain online." Can someone explain this more clearly? Senorangel (talk) 03:49, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  Defamation law in Australia is very different than it is in the US. That's probably the first thing that will help in understanding this. In Australia there is no first amendment protection. Australia has some of the most robust defamation laws on the planet (Japan's are on a whole different scale though) and in order to successfuly defend a defamation case most of the time you need to demonstrate that what you wrote or said was true or contextually true. That's a very simplistic explanation it's a lot more detailed. Now moving on, Schiff filled civil complaints aginst multiple entities at the same time: Nine Entertainment (which runs the Australian version of 60 minutes), The Age newspaper and individual journalists. The newspaper articles were found to have not defamed Schiff, while the 60 minutes episode was found to have defamed him. So the articles are still online, while the 60 minutes episode as published by 60 minutes is not. There is a copy of the 60 minutes episode published by Schiff that is online, however this is not a reliable source per WP:RSPYT. TarnishedPath^talk 04:54, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment the current version reads as below:

On June 30, 2022, the Puerto Rico Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCIF) announced they had suspended the operations of Schiff's Puerto Rico-based Euro Pacific International Bank, which was suspected of having facilitated money laundering and tax evasion. The Commissioner stated that it had found numerous violations of its regulations and that the bank had "not wanted to comply". Regulators liquidated the bank, and Schiff paid $300,000 in fines. Peter Schiff claimed that the OCIF actions were due to allegations made by 60 Minutes Australia, and The Age newspaper, saying, "There was no way those allegations were true, but once those stories broke, the bank's business imploded". In 2022 Schiff filed a civil action against the Nine Network and The Age newspaper for defamation over the Australian 60 Minutes interview and subsequent Age articles. On November 21 the civil action was settled. Schiff stated that he lost millions of dollars due to the actions of the regulatory authorities. In a settlement of his defamation claim, he was paid $360,000 to settle the litigation, and the respondents removed all versions of the broadcast.

Do we have consensus on that wording going forward?TarnishedPath^talk 15:04, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I would have added that they were required to cover Schiff’s court costs but other than that I have no dispute Markj573 (talk) 23:09, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

Pinging @Viriditas, @Mkstokes, @Markj573, @Ravensfire, @Davide King, @Dumuzid, @RetroCosmos, @Sentaso, @BlackcurrantTea, @David Gerard, @Ohnoitsjamie, @Akyrimos, @Skywatcher68, @Llll5032, @SPECIFICO and @Akyrimos as involved editors who have edited the section of text in question from when it became highly contested (which appears to be from April 2023 onwards when the civil action finalised). My apologies if I've missed anyone, it is not intended if I have I just had to look over a couple of hundred edits to try and work out what was related to the investigation section and what wasn't. I didn't realise that it has gone on for so long. If I had I would have started an RfC sooner. TarnishedPath^talk 10:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm just saying "stick strictly to solid RSes" - David Gerard (talk) 10:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@David Gerard I agree 110% there. I would appreciate if you evaluate my wording and sourcing above to whether that "stick strictly to solid RSes" or I'm just bonkers and cast a survey vote accordingly. TarnishedPath^talk 11:03, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I see a lot wrong with it.

1. The opening sentence implies the OCIF were the officials that said the bank was under investigation of facilitation money laundering and offshore tax evasion. Neither of the cited articles support this.

2. In fact, one source explicitly says those suspicions were from "the “J5”, a taskforce made up of the tax chiefs of Australia, the US, UK, the Netherlands and Canada."

3. They are the organization that created Operation Atlantis, yet the J5 isn't mentioned anywhere in this Wikipedia article. It is a completely different investigation.

4. Cited sources say the OCIF suspended the operations due to "'serious insolvency' issues", not "insufficient capitol [sic]."

5. Schiff actually filed a defamation action against Nine Network, The Age, Nick McKenzie, Charlotte Grieve, and Joel Tozer. I understand that some may have a WP:RGW "against a certain Australian journalist", but a neutral observer reading this article would come away thinking no one actually defamed Peter Schiff, which is patently false and explicitly contrary to court documents.

6. Coincidentally, despite Nine Networks removing the broadcast, the video of the 60 Minutes Australia broadcast exists! I don't see any reason it shouldn't be added here as a citation, or using the {{cite episode}} or {{cite AV media}} templates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RaqBlxsEEA Mkstokes (talk) 21:32, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with it, but it seems quite wordy and narrative, without highlighting whatever the sources state was the central point or the upshot. Speaking purely as a reader of that proposed text and of the NYT source, it seems that the cash settlement was nowhere near the value lost in the collapse and closure of the bank. So it looks as if the lawsuit had little merit. SPECIFICO talk 16:08, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO I don't think the merit of a lawsuit, especially one brought for defamation, should be judged based on a dollar amount. The judge found that Nine Network, Nick McKenzie, Charlotte Grieve, and Joel Tozer defamed Peter Schiff. This is a VERY important legal fact regarding Schiff's WP:BLP. Mkstokes (talk) 20:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This is not a conclusion that we would ever place in article text, but many readers of the sources have likely reacted as I did -- that he settled for a pittance compared to what would have been the damages for ruining a viable business. SPECIFICO talk 22:07, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO, he had very little choice in the matter. The Australian legal system caps the damages for defamation cases to AUD $398,500. Nine Network, The Age, Nick McKenzie, Charlotte Grieve, and Joel Tozer agreed to pay him more than the cap for the defamation charge (i.e., AUD $550,000). But I'm not surprised you came away with that reaction because there are very few details in this article regarding the defamation case. It just says he sued, he settled, they removed the broadcast. It doesn't even say the judge found all but The Age defamed Mr. Schiff, which it most certainly says in court documents. Mkstokes (talk) 23:23, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

There is also the fact that investigators didn’t bring any charges Peter Schiff him and all versions of the broadcast were ordered to be taken down Markj573 (talk) 12:51, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Schiff paid fines to the regulators. Bank requlation is a civil matter except in extraordinary circumstances. Criminal charges are rarely brought, even in bank failures and egregious mismanagement. SPECIFICO talk 21:53, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment as of Special:Diff/1193971949 the subheading is "Investigation and lawsuit" which was my suggestion, however discussion in this RfC should decide whether that is ongoing consensus. TarnishedPath^talk 16:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment Couldn't the entire section be summarized and merged into business career? The whole thing seems too wordy. Nemov (talk) 20:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's wordy because it's trying to cover two major investigations and a civil action for defamation. Here are the facts. OCIF suspended operations of EPIB for serious insolvency, but later admitted they had sufficient cash. Mr. Schiff paid a fine of $300,000 and agreed to liquidate the bank, losing millions. J5 investigated the bank, but brought no charges. Nine Network, Nick McKenzie, Charlotte Grieve, and Joel Tozer defamed Peter Schiff and agreed to pay him for that defamation as well as Nine Networks and The Age covering his legal costs. Mkstokes (talk) 21:48, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The Age was not found to have defamed Schiff. TarnishedPath^talk 02:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

That is 100% correct. The Age was not found to have defamed Schiff. However, Nine Networks was found to have defamed Schiff and this is conformed by WP:RS cited in this article. Mkstokes (talk) 20:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Nemov, potentially but then the tendentious editors would likely be seeking to expand it again. This has been going on since April 2023, looking at the article history. Not so long ago the section was twice the size it is now. This RfC is a attempt to try and fix the content (until such time that new consensus emerges) so that any further tendentious editing may be more easily dealt with. TarnishedPath^talk 02:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

There was an attempt earlier to add information about covering court costs which we can talk about on the talk page. I cited the Australian and added a brief sentence. I’m going to be busy with some work so will be absent for awhile Markj573 (talk) 14:47, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

@Markj573, please read the comments above. There is no consensus for expansion of any description. Quite the opposite. TarnishedPath^talk 02:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

This is going exactly as I expected. As it currently stands, despite a reliable source that's still cited referencing "Operation Atlantis" it has completely disappeared from this section of the article as well as the fact that no charges of money laundering or any other illegal activity were found. However, the first sentence of the article makes reference to the "officials" associated with this operation. Since neither Operation Atlantis nor the organization that started it, J5, is mentioned it leaves the reader with the impression that OCIF said Euro Pacific Bank was under suspicion of facilitating money laundering and offshore tax evasion. Operation Atlantis has been whitewashed. The acknowledgement from OCIF that the bank had sufficient cash on hand has been whitewashed. The fact that Peter Schiff was defamed has been whitewashed. Finally, the reliable source that provides crucial details about the defamation, The Australian, is not cited. The Chinese government couldn't have done a better job of obscuring reality. Excellent job! Mkstokes (talk) 20:01, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

@Mkstokes, please do not edit the article to reinsert that YouTube video. It has been removed a number of times now. Per WP:RSPYT "Most videos on YouTube are anonymous, self-published, and unverifiable, and should not be used at all. Content uploaded from a verified official account, such as that of a news organization, may be treated as originating from the uploader and therefore inheriting their level of reliability. However, many YouTube videos from unofficial accounts are copyright violations and should not be linked from Wikipedia, according to WP:COPYLINK. See also WP:YOUTUBE and WP:VIDEOLINK". This is an unambiguous copyright violation as it is not uploaded by the verified account of the news organisation which created the content. Additionally there is consensus in this current RfC for trimming current content, not expanding it. Do not reinsert this without obtaining consensus in talk per WP:BLPUNDEL. TarnishedPath^talk 02:53, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Collapse content that adds nothing to discussion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Coincidentally, @TarnishedPath says "...various accounts and IPs who have an agenda...have sought to continuously insert the journalist's name into the article regardless of whether there are WP:RS that justifies it." Yet, text approved by @TarnishedPath on Nick McKenzie's WP:BPL (see [Revision history timestamp 22:45, December 28, 2023‎] states the following: "In 2023, the Nine Network settled a defamation lawsuit involving Peter Schiff after an Australian judge found that Nick McKenzie's 60 Minutes story..." The citation for this sentence is the NY Times article by Matthew Goldstein, seen below in the References section. I'd have no problem adding "Nick McKenzie's 60 Minutes" to Peter Schiff's article, especially since the identical citation is used. It also mentions "...had defamed Schiff." but there is no mention of that on Schiff's page. Mkstokes (talk) 00:08, 7 January 2024 (UTC) Please cease putting words in my mouth and WP:GASLIGHTING as you did in Talk:Peter Schiff/Archive 2#Investigation section has a biased tone. I'm losing patience with your behaviour. TarnishedPathtalk 02:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC) @TarnishedPath no one is putting words in your mouth. As everyone can very easily see, I'm quoting your exact words and edits. You seem to be taking this very personally. I'd suggest if you don't want to be quoted, then stop creating quotable content. Mkstokes (talk) 03:41, 7 January 2024 (UTC) Show me the exact edit where I wrote the words "I approve of this edit" on the Nick McKenzie talk page or in an edit summary of the Nick McKenzie article. I expect you to retract your ridiculous statements. TarnishedPathtalk 03:51, 7 January 2024 (UTC) I'll do you one better. You actually partially typed in Nick McKenzie's name! Here's the diff between a previous Nick McKenzie article and your edits to that article. (see Nick McKenzie: Difference between revisions - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nick_McKenzie&diff=1192399952&oldid=1191681761) But you are correct in that there is no text saying "I approve of this edit." But since you WROTE/RESTORED the text and didn't say "I don't approve of what I just wrote/restored" then I think it's safe to say you approved of it. However, I'm willing to accept that you didn't approve of the edit you published. Maybe going forward, for EVERY post that you provide, you can write in the summary that you approve of your own post so that we don't have this happen again. I do have a question though: Do you approve of this current RfC? I don't want to assume that because you posted it, that you approve of it. Mkstokes (talk) 16:46, 7 January 2024 (UTC) This is ridiculous and unhinged. You made an allegation about me that implied I was being hypocritical. Editing to restore to a less than perfect edit and away from a worse edit, nowhere near indicates anything approaching "approved by @TarnishedPath". Now provide evidence for your ridiculous allegations right now or retract them. TarnishedPathtalk 22:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC) I think I'm going to go down a different path. I'm going to start authoring 3 separate articles to deal with the factual details that are not being provided here. In the effort to pare down this section of Peter Schiff's WP:BLP for WP:DUE and WP:WEIGHT a large amount of details, context, referencing, and accuracy are being left on the cutting board floor. One of the most glaring deficiencies is that there were actually two separate investigations into Euro Pacific Bank, yet the article reads as if there was only one. The Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (J5), a global organization committed to combatting transnational tax crime, isn't even mentioned. Undisputed facts of the defamation case have been excluded merely because one reporter decided not to include them in his article. One editor may or may not have noted that Peter Schiff paid fines as part of the outcome of Operation Atlantis when he verifiably did not. Shockingly, I feel I have to qualify that because despite that text being in the editors comment, I don't want to be accused of putting words in the editor's mouth. Finally, it seems that WP:5P5 no longer exists. Remember, "Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, but they are not carved in stone; their content and interpretation can evolve over time. The principles and spirit matter more than literal wording, and sometimes improving Wikipedia requires making exceptions." The fact that we cannot say that Peter Schiff was defamed despite court documents explicitly saying that he was defamed as a factual matter is egregious. Mkstokes (talk) 14:15, 8 January 2024 (UTC) @Mkstokes yet more ridiculous and unhinged statements. Please refer to the proposed wording or the current wording and tell me where exactly fines are mentioned? Just because it's covered in the sources we use it doesn't mean there was any intention to include that specific material as is evident by the proposal. Please do keep us updated on any articles you write, I'd be most interested in reading them. TarnishedPathtalk 14:46, 8 January 2024 (UTC) Within this RfC, someone posted the following sentence. "Per the suggested change in subheading, there are no sources in the article that state that Schiff was exonerated, to the contrary it is explicitly stated in reliable sources used in the article that he had to pay fines as part of the outcome Operation Atlantis." So, let's look at what the reliable source says. "Last year, banking officials in Puerto Rico moved to shut down Euro Pacific, claiming it had inadequate capital levels. Mr. Schiff subsequently reached an agreement with bank regulators to liquidate Euro Pacific and agreed to pay $300,000 in fines." The "banking officials in Puerto Rico" is clearly a reference to OFIC. OFIC had absolutely nothing to do with Operation Atlantis. That operation was run by J5. Well, what does the reliable source say about J5? "The international tax investigation, led by a group called the J5, has not filed charges against Mr. Schiff or Euro Pacific." So, the sentence that someone posted on this RfC is verifiably false based on the reliable source. As I clearly said, that text was "in the editors comment." But your response ignores that statement and moves the goal posts to "Please refer to the proposed wording or the current wording." Why would someone seemingly ignore what I'm referencing to choose to reference something that I never mentioned? I'll let someone else make that determination. As a side note, the reliable source says, "Nine Entertainment television program had defamed Mr. Schiff in reporting on his institution, Euro Pacific Bank in San Juan." Maybe that should be mentioned in the proposed wording since it comes from a reliable source rather than merely mentioning that they settled? Mkstokes (talk) 15:29, 8 January 2024 (UTC) Correction "he had to pay fines as part of the OCIF investigation". This really is an extreme amount of petty nitpicking for something which there is no proposal or any argument to put it into the article. Ps, I'd suggest you have little chance of getting up any proposed expansion of the wording. I suggest you read discussions above which mostly favour trim. TarnishedPathtalk 23:18, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Nick McKenzie#RfC: Lawsuit between Peter Schiff and Australian media

I've started a RfC concerning a related subject at Talk:Nick McKenzie#RfC: Lawsuit between Peter Schiff and Australian media. Interested editors are invited to participate. TarnishedPath^talk 14:37, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dr. Doom

Peter Schiff is named Dr. Doom for a reason. Both he, and the fictional character, have ideas that are close to impossible. I wish journalists would use more integrity and stop repeating his nearly unfounded claims.--2604:3D08:5E7A:6A00:E43A:8BCA:A13:90AA (talk) 08:13, 10 July 2024 (UTC)