The news across the financial world is good for unions, which will find organizing a bit easier; adequate for Greece, which will find getting bailed out a bit easier, and bitter for JPMorgan which had to accept a $153.6 million SEC fine for misleading investors about a mortgage securities transaction.
The pint-size Manhattan bank's market cap of $2 billion is dwarfed by JPMorgan's $161.5 billion and BofA's $126.4 billion. Still, Signature has done far better for investors this year. By steering clear of risky derivatives and sticking with basic banking, Signature is thriving.
Investors have hit Goldman Sachs with a class-action lawsuit for allegedly failing to disclose that it would benefit if its debt products lost value. The investment bank -- and several others -- say more lawsuits are likely on the way.
At the Financial Services Inquiry Commission hearing, former Wall Street derivatives executive Steven Kohlhagen claimed derivatives generally played "no role" in causing the financial crisis. This puzzling argument doesn't pass the straight-face test.
Attention, all owners of Triaxx collateralized debt obligations and clients of New York based investment adviser Thomas Priore: The Securities and Exchange Commission has just sued Priore and his three affliated companies for fraud for their management of the Triaxx CDOs.
Lawyers have already exploited Facebook to help win in divorce cases, investigate potential jurors, and market themselves. Now, a California judge has ruled on when parties can subpoena Facebook data in a civil suit, and yes, your privacy settings are the key factor.
Ratings agencies defending against lawsuits claiming that they issued bogus AAA ratings on junk bonds have asserted a First Amendment defense: Their opinions are protected speech. So far, they're not winning the argument.
It's only when clients ask for financial advice that banks owe a fiduciary duty to them -- and these activities contribute just a tiny portion of banks' revenue.
MBIA has sued Merrill Lynch because the CDOs on which Merrill bought insurance from MBIA were AAA-rated junk. MBIA says Merrill knew the CDOs didn't deserve the top rating at the time it insured them. If this case succeeds, big banks may find dud ratings very expensive.
The most striking portrait to emerge from the Goldman Sachs fraud charges may be that of the sheer uselessness of much of Wall Street's activities in recent years. Exhibit A: Synthetic CDOs and their ilk. And no less a capitalist than George Soros is loudly sounding the alarm.
CDOs were a way for investment banks to evade their capital requirements, just as asset-backed securities played a similar role for savings and loan institutions in the 1980s. This time around the banks had plenty of help, especially from fee-hungry credit agencies.
Goldman reportedly plans to claim it was unsure of the mortgage market's direction in 2006 and 2007. How this boosts its legal case against SEC fraud charges is unclear -- but it certainly signals that clients' interests don't come first for the bank.
Leaked Goldman Sachs documents show that it will come out swinging against SEC fraud charges. Goldman reportedly plans to claim it was unsure about the mortgage market's direction in 2006 and 2007.
In forming its defense against SEC charges of fraud, the investment bank seems to be throwing VP Fabrice Tourre under the bus and says it lost money on the deal in question. Do these claims hold water?
Some legal analysts are saying the SEC's fraud case against Goldman Sachs is less than bulletproof. And now a new report indicates that a Goldman investor knew about Paulson & Co.'s involvement in the Abacus deal, further weakening the SEC's case.
According to The Financial Times, AIG is hoping to piggyback on the SEC's fraud case against Goldman Sachs to recover $2 billion that it paid the investment bank. But what's missing from the article is any evidence that AIG has a case against Goldman.
The giant bank is defending itself based on four claims it's making to counter the SEC's charges. Our legal reporter thinks the SEC has a stronger -- but not a slam-dunk -- case on the first three points. The fourth is more up in the air. All of them involve subtle interpretations of what happened and why.
The SEC notified the investment bank sometime in the last six months. Many companies disclose such notifications -- but Goldman didn't. This is the latest incident to reinforce perceptions of the bank's harmful secrecy.
You might think the Goldman Sachs fraud case is complex since it involves structured finance, investment banking and hedge fund wrangling. Nope, it's actually about something pretty simple: Disclosure.
The SEC says Goldman misstated and omitted key facts about securities tied to subprime mortgages as housing was imploding. It cited the role "a major hedge fund played in the portfolio selection process and the fact that the hedge fund had taken a short position against the CDO."
