From the category archives:

SEC

Who Leaked the News About the Goldman Settlement?

July 15, 2010

When the SEC filed civil charges against Goldman Sachs last April, we postulated that the end game would be: …one of those vague and disappointing resolutions for which the SEC has become famous, as discussed here,  whereby the defendant company’s shareholders pay a pile of money as a penalty for what management did (but for [...]

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Goldman’s Kryptonite?

April 19, 2010

How is it Goldman felt it necessary to warn shareholders that enforcement actions can have a negative impact upon the company’s business in the abstract, but apparently felt no need to reveal the material fact that it had been formally alerted by the SEC to an investigation? In the greatest financial meltdown since the 1930s, [...]

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The Half-Baked Pie that Hit Bank of America Shareholders in the Face

February 24, 2010

The settlement was not crafted to act as a deterrent to future wrongdoing or to give the investing public confidence that the SEC is looking out for their interests in this post-Madoff era. U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff had finally approved the settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bank of America.  Our [...]

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Bank of America – SEC Settlement | Problem #2 (The Houdini Effect)

February 11, 2010

Regulators and the investing public need to demand that boards of directors be placed on the front line of accountability and not be allowed to slip away from scrutiny like some escape artist in a circus act. The SEC’s settlement with Bank of America, still to be approved by the court, raises another question beyond [...]

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Bank of America – SEC Settlement | Problem #1 (The Groucho Marks Plan)

February 5, 2010

Under the so-called new and improved SEC settlement with Bank of America, the bank will pay $150 million to settle the charges. According to court records, the settlement only “contemplates” that the sum will be paid, at some future date, to shareholders who were harmed by the bank’s non-disclosure of material facts. But where is this [...]

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A Judge Who is Not a Rubber Stamp

August 12, 2009

Bank of America’s settlement shows that it’s  time to look at the way the SEC allows companies just to pay when they break the rules. It is part of the culture that created the financial crisis of recent months. An interesting development is occurring in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff [...]

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Did You Say “Fraud,” Mr. Mozilo?

June 5, 2009

When Countrywide Financial’s Angelo Mozilo told a Congressional committee in 2007 that there was a lot of fraud in the subprime business, we thought at the time it might be a prophetic statement.   The Securities and Exchange Commission apparently agrees, as this week it laid civil charges of securities fraud against the company’s former [...]

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Is the SEC Missing the Corporate Governance Forest?

April 14, 2009

The agency that bills itself as “the investor’s advocate” needs to go well beyond asking boards to chime in on what’s behind their structure.  It needs to focus on the bigger picture of the role of the board in the worst financial crisis since the 1930s and the persistent folly of directors who do not direct.  That, [...]

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Has the SEC Caught the OSC’s Disease?

February 20, 2009

The world’s most powerful securities regulator has long called itself the investor’s advocate. Given its stunning failure over the Madoff scam and the latest scandal, involving R. Allen Stanford, it may be on its way to becoming known as the investor’s nightmare. For years, the Securities and Exchange Commission was regarded as one of the [...]

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