Curious Addendum to Development Bank Story

Our story of February 12 on toxic assets investment losses at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) linked to a November 2008 study (PDF) commissioned by an IDB staff group detailing the scope of the losses.

Last Friday evening we got a letter (PDF) from IDB’s External Relations Advisor claiming that the copy of the study we posted is “a forgery” and had been “altered and edited outside the Bank”; another letter this afternoon repeated the allegation of “forgery.” We immediately asked for evidence of these two assertions, and still haven’t received any. The letters from External Relations Adviser Guillermo Miranda didn’t question the accuracy of any of the facts in our story, but we asked anyway if the IDB knows of any inaccuracies in the article. Again, they did not respond, although the Bank now says the final version of the report will eventually be made public.

Meanwhile, we’ve checked back with our sources. We’ve found nothing so far to support the notion of forgery, and nothing to indicate that any differences between the version of the study we posted and the version apparently later sent to IDB’s Board were “altered [or] edited outside the Bank.” We’ll keep you posted if anything changes.