This morning, a day after Spitzer, the New York state attorney general, unveiled a 55-page lawsuit against the former chief of the New York Stock Exchange, charging him with deception, conflict of interest and the receipt of excessive pay, Grasso went public with his defense.

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Perhaps inevitably, one issue being debated is whether the means that Islamic finance uses to avoid the receipt of interest are just a sham in which interest is in effect paid, but called by another name.

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Mr. Podolsky and others responsible for preparing this research may also have a significant financial interest in the topics discussed (either directly or through receipt of compensation at Bridgewater Associates, LP).

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Its shares, available as an American Depositary Receipt on the New York Stock Exchange, have drifted lower of late as interest rates have been nudged upward in Brazil to combat inflation.

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He presumably would have done so by relying on a special IRS "safe harbor" rule relating to the taxation of a service partner's receipt of such interests, but that rule emphatically does not apply to an interest when sold to a retirement plan, which is supposed to be measured by its true fair market value.

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