Promises Made, and Remade, by Firms in S.E.C. Fraud Cases

[Dover]

Source: NYT

WASHINGTON — When Citigroup agreed last month to pay $285 million to settle civil charges that it had defrauded customers during the housing bubble, the Securities and Exchange Commission wrested a typical pledge from the company: Citigroup would never violate one of the main antifraud provisions of the nation’s securities laws.

To an outsider, the vow may seem unusual. Citigroup, after all, was merely promising not to do something that the law already forbids. But that is the way the commission usually does business. It also was not the first time the firm was making that promise.

Citigroup’s main brokerage subsidiary, its predecessors or its parent company agreed not to violate the very same antifraud statute in July 2010. And in May 2006. Also as far as back as March 2005 and April 2000.

Citigroup has a lot of company in this regard on Wall Street. According to a New York Times analysis, nearly all of the biggest financial companies — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America among them — have settled fraud cases by promising that they would never again violate an antifraud law, only to have the S.E.C. conclude they did it again a few years later.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/business/in-sec-fraud-cases-banks-make-and-break-promises.html?ref=business

[truedelphi]

1. And of course, the most fraudulent man of them all,

Who if he were an ordinary mortal, would be facing down RICO charges for his manipulations of the events concerning the first TARP bailouts, and how so much of those payments went to his friends on Wall Street, is none other than Obama's Good Buddy, Tim Geithner.

The stuff he did and got away with doing while heading up the Ne York Fed boggles the mind. And then the fact that he will never pay the piper further boggles the mind.

And to top it off, he now heads Treasury! Life is really good if you are a crook working the game from the hottest spots inside the financial world.

[No Elephants]

2. At what point do we begin putting executives in jail for the company's misdeeds on their watch?

Do that, and you will reduce this kind of thing.

Not eliminate it, because people who handle payroll and officers are personally liable for failure to withhold taxes and you do find small companies doing that anyway, but not mega corporations.

[PoliticAverse]

4. Apparently not while there's still some medical marijuana dispensaries around... n/t

[nineteen50]

7. When the punishment for the crime is

less than the profit from the crime they will never stop.
Inequality in our legal system must stop.

[coyote]

3. I remember taking a Sociology class in college where

my professor basically said, "Crime pays."

Boy, was she ever right....I should have paid more attention in that class.

[FreakinDJ]

5. And to think Freepers are worried about Islamic Terrorist

It is the Financial Terrorist of Wall St. that have brought this country to it's knees

[nineteen50]

6. Again

All debt caused by fraudulent practices should be dismissed!

[Hotler]

8. FUCKERS! n/t

[cstanleytech]

9. The government needs to hold those who make the decisions accountable more as well by

making them pay out of their pockets the same amount and if they dont have the money seize all their assets including any they try to hide like how they sell a house cheap to a spouse to protect it.