By PETER J. HENNING |
In one case, the
In the other case, the
Both cases took direct aim at conduct at the center of the financial crisis, and neither yielded anything close to a finding of actual wrongdoing.
The S.E.C. dropped its investigation into
In addition to the
The problem the S.E.C. faced in the
Prosecutors have been successful in using a provision of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, better known as Firrea, to pursue civil cases against banks for violations of the mail and wire fraud statutes for misstatements about subprime loans bundled into securities that were sold to investors. JPMorgan Chase,
In February, Attorney General
Banks have been willing to settle with hefty payments, but to date only one individual, a former executive at Countrywide Financial, has been found liable for a violation. Although Firrea remains a potent tool, evidence from the financial crisis is undoubtedly becoming stale because fraud cases, unlike fine wine, do not age well.
DealBook reported last November that prosecutors were considering filing civil charges against
For all the billions of dollars paid in penalties by banks and
Even that shift drew a rebuke from Senator
With the era of financial crisis cases drawing to a close, the main lesson the
Federal prosecutors expect cooperation for corporate misconduct, but self-reporting will no longer be enough to consider a company to be cooperative. “True cooperation, however, requires identifying the individuals actually responsible for the misconduct — be they executives or others — and the provision of all available facts relating to that misconduct,”
If anyone still had a notion that companies should be loyal to their employees, the
Copyright: | Copyright 2015 The New York Times Company |
Source: | New York Times Digital |
Wordcount: | 1075 |
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