On Lisa Rein's Radar: News Clip About Last Week's Wall Street Settlement

May 03, 2003

News Clip About Last Week's Wall Street Settlement

Here's another clip from Channel 2 News in San Francisco. This time the subject is investor fraud.

All the news reports are saying this huge settlement will "change the face of Wall Street," but I don't see why it will change anything. It seems like the rich have been allowed to buy their way out of going to jail again.

We're not talking about little firms here: we're talking about "old school" businesses that should have known better.
(Check out the list of offenders below.)

Apparently, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show felt the same way.

Wall St. Fraud Pay Off - KTVU - Channel 2 News 4-28-03 (Small - 8 MB)
Wall St. Fraud Pay Off - KTVU - Channel 2 News 4-28-03 (Hi-Res - 118 MB)

Posted by Lisa at May 03, 2003 02:03 PM | TrackBack

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Comments

This kind of crime will continue to pay for these criminals until we remove the other criminals that "impose" these weak penalties. This reeks of U.S. government corruption.

Posted by: Cowicide on May 15, 2003 10:38 AM

I’m a former senior trial attorney for the Enforcement Division of the US Securities & Exchange Commission. The present state of the US capital markets made me realize how little people know about the SEC and its law enforcement work. Towards that end, I created a web site to educate people in the industry and investors. It’s had over 350,000 hits.

Consider: 1) only about $6.5 million of the $176 million in penalties and disgorgement ordered in the regional SEC office's cases in the past 5 years actually has been paid; 2) $36 million was waived because offenders indicated they didn't have the money; 3) $124 million in sanctions resulting from cases filed between 1998 and 2001 has never been collected; and 4) GAO issued a report last July criticizing the SEC's collection program and its failure in returning money to investors, finding that the agency's collection rate was only 14% for $3.1 billion in disgorgement ordered nationwide from 1995 through 2001.

I invite you and your professional colleagues to please take a look. The URL is www.RealityAtTheSEC.com.

Regards, Gary Goodenow, Miami, Florida USA

Posted by: Gary Goodenow on November 22, 2003 11:43 AM