Posts belonging to Category Bear Stearns



Bloomberg Article Lambasts the SEC

 

Former investment banker and financial writer William Cohan has written a blistering critique of the SEC’s settlement with former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, essentially accusing the SEC of abject surrender to the forces of evil and begging the judge to reject the settlement: “We are all worse off for […]

Is the SEC Too Soft on Major Wall Street Firms?

 

Questions continue to arise regarding the too-cozy relationship between the SEC and Wall Street. Recent reports claim that the SEC, when settling with big Wall Street firms, has a practice of granting waivers that preserve special privileges enjoyed by those firms, and protect them from serious consequences that would otherwise result from their wrongdoing. For […]

The Subprime Mortgage Mess: How the American Dream Turned into a Nightmare

 

Best-selling “Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led To Economic Armegeddon,” by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner, “calls out greedy guys behind mortgage mess,” according to a USA Today book review by Kathryn Caravan. See also “Home Truths,” by James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal. Both reviews provide examples of how the […]

Mass Mutual Sues Goldman, UBS and JP Morgan Over Soured Mortgage-Backed Securities Deals

 

Underwriters Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Bear Stearns (now owned by JP Morgan) allegedly sold more than $175 million of mortgage-backed securities to insurance giant Mass Mutual without disclosing that they were composed of troubled loans, which made the securities “junk” worth only $40 million, according to a Law 360 article, citing a civil action filed […]

Why No Major Indictment in Connection with the Financial Crisis?

 

The government’s failure to convict two minor Bear Stearns executives, whose hedge fund collapsed in 2007, may have caused it to shy away from prosecuting high-profile executives whose actions contributed to the financial crisis, according to Joe Nocera’s recent New York Times article, “Biggest Fish Face Little Risk of Being Caught.” In addition, proving criminal […]

Judges Begin to Question “Sweetheart” Securities Regulatory Settlements

 

Some judges are starting to question lenient settlement deals proffered by Wall Street firms and their arguably captive regulator, the SEC, according to an August 19, 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal by David Weidner called “In Search Of Justice for Wall (Street).” Two U.S. District Court Judges, Jed S. Rakoff and Ellen Segal […]

Wall Street’s Dump of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Preferred Stocks Cost Investors Billions

 

The sale of billion of dollars of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred stock in 2007 and 2008 was accomplished by fraud on unsuspecting public investors and the complicity of mortgage originators that bought the shares knowing they were poison, according to attorney and professor Seth E. Lipner in his July 7th Forbes article entitled […]

Wall Street’s Sale of Toxic CDOs Undermines Education and Other Government Services

 

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the sale of $200 million in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) to several Wisconsin school districts, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article by Meena Thiruvengadam and Kelly Nolan (“SEC Investigates Failed CDOs Sold to Wisconsin Schools”). The schools have also filed a lawsuit alleging that the CDOs […]

Wealthy Individuals Have Been Victimized By Wall Street’s CDO Fraud

 

Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms sold the riskiest tranches of collateralized debt obligations (“CDOs”), not just to institutions, but to individual investors, as safe investments, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article by Dan Fitzgerald titled “Didn’t See Risk, and Got Stung.” Now that the CDOs have imploded, and investors are seeking […]

Local Governments and Non-Profits Have Suffered Catastrophic Losses as a Result of Wall Street’s Excesses

 

According to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “at least a dozen local governments and other institutions that used derivative deals called swaps to try to lower the cost of bond issues have ended up owing as much as $394 million in fees to the Wall Street investment banks that set up the […]