As The Observer's Maureen Tkacik noted two weeks ago, Mary Schapiro, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, is a popular figure in Washington. She wins high marks for her integrity, hard work and decency--qualities that often are in short supply in public life.
And yet, for all the affection, Ms. Schapiro finds herself in the Read More
Few cops are as well liked as Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro. "Oh, Mary is just a really nice, good person," former S.E.C. commissioner Isaac Hunt told The Observer. "I don't think anyone doesn't love Mary."
"Mary is extraordinarily smart, open-minded and her integrity is absolutely above reproach," said Susan W. Phillips, an economist Read More
Apparently fed up with all those stories about how its employees watched pornography instead of catching Bernie Madoff, the S.EC. will no longer respond to Freedom of Information Act requests. In fact, thanks to a portion of the recently passed Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, the S.E.C. may now be subject to very little Read More
Last Friday afternoon, John Whitehead, the 88-year-old former Goldman Sachs co-chairman, was relaxing in Rhode Island. He felt relieved. One day earlier, his old firm had settled the S.E.C.'s landmark fraud charges for $550 million. Goldman did not have to admit wrongdoing, only that a mistake was made. "It's a lesser number than I feared, Read More
In response to the S.E.C.'s 74 paragraphs of charges against him, the poetic and iconic Goldman Sachs vice president Fabrice Tourre was defiant. He did nothing wrong, he said in a newly-released filing, because, among other things, he's a citizen of France.
Mr. Tourre, who has been left to fend for himself Read More
When the rumors started spreading late this afternoon that the S.E.C.'s 4:45 p.m. "significant" announcement might have something to do with the Goldman Sachs suit, it was easy to be skeptical: There has been word since early May that the firm would be settling any day now. But according to Dealbook, Read More
When The Observer profiled the billionaire financier and ex–car czar Steven Rattner earlier this year, he was waddling in the unpleasant no man's land of semi-disgrace: Stuck in the billion-dollar New York State pension fund scandal, he seemed faraway from both vindication and indictment.
Things have gotten worse.
In the spring, his old private-equity firm, Read More
When the Journal and the Financial Times sent Wall Street into a bit of a tizzy today by reporting that Goldman may avoid fraud charges in its settlement with the S.E.C., it was just another chapter in the colorful history of gossip on Sachs settling. But, so far, the scuttlebutt has been pretty wrong.
Today's Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission is no longer weak-kneed.
In one of the most astounding turns since the financial crisis began, the S.E.C. has sued Goldman Sachs, the most important and feared investment bank in the world. The Times points out that it's the very first time any U.S. regulators "have taken action against Read More
Two days after celebrity money manager Dana Giacchetto put on a silly hat and surrendered to the F.B.I. on charges that he had bilked his clients out of more than $6 million, comic Jerry Stiller gripped a vodka martini at a premiere party for his son Ben Stiller's new movie, Keeping The Faith . The Read More
