Citibank is not the only firm in bed with the SEC. Most of the other big firms are as well. The SEC makes a practice of ignoring brokerage firms promises to not commit the same offense again, the 'offense' being a violation of securities laws for which the firm has been fined. The NY Times has found 51 cases in which the securities laws have been violated after firms had vowed not to do so; the list of the nineteen firms involved in these 51 cases is a who's who of financial firms: American International Group, Ameriprise, Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Columbia Management, Deutsche Asset Management, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Putnam Investments, Raymond James, RBC Dain Rauscher, UBS and Wells Fargo/Wachovia.
Interestingly, all of these settlements the companies have been able to plead innocence by “neither admitting nor denying” the accusations; that way they have another level of protection should investors sue them.
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