- The SEC vs. Goldman
- SEC faces fight to produce an open-and-shut court case
- SEC Probes Other Soured Deals
- Paulson May Face Litigation Following Goldman Suit, Whalen Says
- Top Goldman Leaders Said to Have Overseen Mortgage Unit
- Fabrice Tourre email is key to SEC’s evidence
- Goldman Sachs SEC Case May Hinge on Meaning of Word ‘Selected’
- Goldman May Face U.K., German Inquiries After Suit
- Brown Says He Wants Special Investigation of Goldman Sachs
- Goldman attacked by UK premier
The SEC vs. Goldman – WSJ
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s complaint against Goldman Sachs is playing in the media as the Rosetta Stone that finally exposes the Wall Street perfidy and double-dealing behind the financial crisis. Our reaction is different: Is that all there is?
After 18 months of investigation, the best the government can come up with is an allegation that Goldman misled some of the world’s most sophisticated investors about a single 2007 “synthetic” collateralized debt obligation (CDO)? Far from being the smoking gun of the financial crisis, this case looks more like a water pistol……
SEC faces fight to produce an open-and-shut court case – FT
n taking on Goldman Sachs, the most successful and prestigious investment bank on Wall Street, and accusing it of securities fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission has its work cut out.
Goldman’s reaction – to deny the charge and stand firmly behind Fabrice Tourre, a vice-president who worked on the deal under investigation – reflects its confidence that the bank will be cleared in court. The SEC certainly does not have an open and shut case against it….
SEC Probes Other Soured Deals – WSJ
The Securities and Exchange Commission, after having hit Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with a civil fraud charge, is investigating whether other mortgage deals arranged by some of Wall Street’s biggest firms may have crossed the line into misleading investors…..
Among the firms that created mortgage deals that soon went sour were Deutsche Bank AG, UBS AG and Merrill Lynch & Co., now owned by Bank of America Corp. It isn’t known what deals the SEC is investigating…..
Paulson May Face Litigation Following Goldman Suit, Whalen Says – Bloomberg
Paulson & Co., the world’s third- largest manager of hedge funds, may face civil litigation for its role in the collateralized debt obligations that led to the fraud charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to Christopher Whalen.
Billionaire John Paulson’s hedge fund made $1 billion on the CDOs that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Whalen, a banking analyst at Institutional Risk Analytics in Torrance, California, said that allegations the firm helped shop a package of debt they were actively betting against opened it up to litigation in the wake of the suit by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“I’m not sure they will escape civil litigation arising from this,” Whalen said in a Bloomberg Radio interview with Tom Keene on April 16. “You can bet the parties who lost money here are going to be seeking redress.”…..
Top Goldman Leaders Said to Have Overseen Mortgage Unit – NYT
…..Mr. Tourre was the only person named in the S.E.C. suit. But according to interviews with eight former Goldman employees, senior bank executives played a pivotal role in overseeing the mortgage unit just as the housing market began to go south. These people spoke on the condition that they not be named so as not to jeopardize business relationships or to anger executives at Goldman, viewed as the most powerful bank on Wall Street.
According to these people, executives up to and including Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive, took an active role in overseeing the mortgage unit as the tremors in the housing market began to reverberate through the nation’s economy. It was Goldman’s top leadership, these people say, that finally ended the dispute on the mortgage desk by siding with those who, like Mr. Tourre and Mr. Egol, believed home prices would decline…..
Fabrice Tourre email is key to SEC’s evidence – Daily Telegraph
Exchanges between Fabrice Tourre of Goldman Sachs and a friend are a key part of the evidence the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is using in its case against the trader and the Wall Street bank.
But Mr Tourre, 31, is not the first person to face being condemned by his own hand as a result of an email exchange, and he is unlikely to be the last.
The fraud case brought against former Bear Stearns’ hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin centred around emails that suggested the men knew their funds were heading for problems, while insisting to investors there was no need for concern. The collapse of the two funds triggered the subprime mortgage crisis………
The two men were eventually acquitted after the defence successfully argued the emails were taken out of context…..
Goldman Sachs SEC Case May Hinge on Meaning of Word ‘Selected’ – Bloomberg
The case against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may turn on the meaning of the word “selected.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission must prove that the most profitable company in Wall Street history defrauded investors by failing to disclose that a hedge-fund firm betting against them played a role in creating what they bought. It must also counter Goldman Sachs’s assertion that an independent asset manager, which the SEC said rejected more than half of the securities initially proposed by Paulson & Co. for a collateralized debt obligation, signed off on the selections.
“The question is whether Paulson’s undisclosed role in portfolio selection was material,” said Larry Ribstein, a law professor at the University of Illinois in Champaign who has written about 140 articles and 10 books on topics including securities law and professional ethics. “There’s no clear and well-defined definition of what you have to disclose in this type of transaction.”
Goldman May Face U.K., German Inquiries After Suit – Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. faces a regulatory probe in Britain and scrutiny from the German government after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued the firm for fraud tied to collateralized debt obligations.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown called yesterday for the Financial Services Authority to start an inquiry, saying he was “shocked” at the “moral bankruptcy” indicated in the suit. Germany’s financial regulator, Bafin, asked the SEC for details on the suit, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said…..
Brown Says He Wants Special Investigation of Goldman Sachs - Bloomberg
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a “special investigation” of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. after U.S. authorities charged the New York-based investment bank with fraud on April 16.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show today, Brown said he was shocked at what he called the “moral bankruptcy” of investment banks and advocated tighter regulation and a global levy on the financial industry…..
Goldman attacked by UK premier – FT
British premier Gordon Brown attacked the “moral bankruptcy” of Goldman Sachs yesterday after the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused the world’s most famous bank of fraud.
His comments came as it emerged that Goldman and the SEC had not discussed a settlement prior to the announcement of charges last week, and as documents emerged revealing the strained relationship between the bank and the regulator during the 20-month probe.,,,,
Tags: CDO, Emails, fraud, Goldman Sachs, John Paulson, Lawsuit, Paulson & Co, Politics, SEC, Subprime mortgages
