Knowing a former employer held open a three-million-a-year job awaiting his return had no impact on the objectivity of at least one departed government worker.

10/16 – BoingBoing – Eric Holder:  I didn’t prosecute bankers unrelated to my $3M/year law firm salary – Article points to the discussion in the next article.

Mr. Holder left a law firm where he was reportedly earning $3M a year to become the attorney general. After completing his government service, he returned to the law firm. Presumably his salary will resume or even increase since he now has humongous amounts of inside information on government strategy, capabilities, and intentions for enforcement of criminal law. That will be tremendously valuable knowledge for banks that find themselves talking to various US Attorneys in the near future.

One pertinent comment: …

Would anticipating a return to a job paying salary of $3,000,000 a year affect your objectivity while working at another job?Read More »

A bit of news about companies in the financial world that have long been called too-big-to-fail, or too-big-to-jail.

The New York Times reports a new position paper from the Department of Justice encourages federal prosecutors to go after individual employees as well as companies when there is criminal wrongdoing.

Reporting is at Justice Department Sets Sites on Wall Street Executives. The technical shift is to focus on individuals who engage in the suspected behavior as well as the company under investigation instead of focusing first on the company, settling with the corporate entity, and then considering whether any individuals were involved.

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The Feds will go after those horrible terrible bankers on Wall Street now that the statute of limitations has expired.Read More »

I’m a bit slow on the uptake sometime. There is an entirely new, huge banking mess that I hadn’t heard about before the billion dollar settlement was announced. Another small fiasco is rumored.

Another day, another couple billion out of the stockholders’ pocket.

First the nearly $2B private settlement.

Twelve banks agreed to settle a private antitrust lawsuit. The now-admitted scheme was to manipulate credit default swap rates. Those are deals to cover the loss if a bond defaults.

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Another massive bank fiasco involving the full cast of TBTF banks, this time for Credit Default Swaps. Where is the boundary of fiascos?Read More »

Here are a few updates I’ve noticed about the banking fiascos:

8/17 – CFO Journal at Wall Street Journal – Biggest Banks’ Crisis-Era Settlements Petering Out: Report – Study by SNL Financial says payouts related to the financial crisis by the six largest US bank accumulate to $132B. More settlements are expected, but the number and dollar amount of settlements is slowing down.

Reserves for additional settlements are $5.9B at Goldman Sachs and $1.4B at Wells. The other four didn’t respond to the reporter about the dollars they have in reserves.

8/30 – Wall Street Journal – Meet the Private Watchdogs Who Police Financial Institutions – Article gives background on private sector monitors put in place to check on changes made to comply with deferred prosecution agreements.

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Updates on banking fiascos – 8/31Read More »