After drubbing, Goldman mulling deal with SEC

[sabra]

Source: NY Post

Goldman Sachs may soon settle its fraud case with the Securities and Exchange Commission, opting to end the legal fight rather than endure a repeat of the public flogging it received Tuesday in Washington, sources familiar with the matter told The Post.

After 11 hours of accusations by members of the Senate Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations, people close to the bank said Goldman is mulling closing the SEC fraud-case chapter on the belief the firm's reputation, already damaged, might not endure a street fight with the Wall Street watchdog.

"It's almost a certainty that there will be a settlement," said a source.

As another person put it, the SEC has an "unlimited supply of ammunition" in the form of e-mails and records that it could release, and Goldman officials would like to avoid having those documents fired back at them the way they were on Tuesday.

A Goldman spokesman declined to comment.

The SEC on April 16 announced that it had sued the Wall Street giant on charges it misled investors about the details of a mortgage-securities deal in which billionaire hedge fund king John Paulson influenced some of the collateral used in the transaction and then bet against its performance.




Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/settlement_day_tKZx6qL2xcbz4MX4xW9oAL

[Captain Hilts]

1. They're in a position to make a 'deal'?!?!

[Tansy_Gold]

2. What kinda deal they gonna make with the investors they, ahem,

"misled"????



After all, the SEC isn't the only lawsuit in town.



TG

[metapunditedgy]

3. The SEC will probably find some way to protect GS from other lawsuits

as part of the settlement. GS will demand no less....

[chill_wind]

4. They've done it before.

2003

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr18113.htm

[Scuba]

5. How 'bout a plea bargain...

... and 20 years in federal prison? Sounds about right to me.

[AlbertCat]

6. I like the idea of stocks.... as in a pillory

Y'know...




Besides being a great pun, can you imagine them in their $3000 suits out in one on Wall St.?

I just saw "The Last Emperor" again and in one scene there are 3 men in a pillory that is not stationary, but the three of them are bound together at the neck merely by one board. They are stumbling around the street begging. I like that idea!

[Lochloosa]

15. Welcome to DU Scuba

:toast:

[Smashcut]

7. "Here, take some of the cash we stole"

"Now run along, will you, there's business to be done..."

[formercia]

9. "We'll split it with you."

"Better watch your back from now on."

[truthisfreedom]

11. "Everybody's got to wet their beak. You stay off our backs, we'll give you a cut."

[formercia]

8. The last thing Goldman needs is a public trial.

All that dirty laundry that people are just dying to get their hands on. Nothing like fear of the Public Record, to make Goldman want cry uncle.

"We admit no wrongdoing." Yeah, right.

[chill_wind]

10. SEC wanted to give AIG details national security secrets status!

I wish I was joking.

This was from back in January

SEC mulled national security status for AIG details
Matthew Goldstein
NEW YORK
Sun Jan 24, 2010 3:04pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal Reserve's bid to keep secret many of the details of the American International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of national security, according to emails obtained by Reuters.

The request to keep the details secret were made by the New York Federal Reserve -- a regulator that helped orchestrate the bailout -- and by the giant insurer itself, according to the emails.

The emails from early last year reveal that officials at the New York Fed were only comfortable with AIG submitting a critical bailout-related document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after getting assurances from the regulatory agency that "special security procedures" would be used to handle the document.

The SEC, according to an email sent by a New York Fed lawyer on January 13, 2009, agreed to limit the number of SEC employees who would review the document to just two and keep the document locked in a safe while the SEC considered AIG's confidentiality request.

The SEC had also agreed that if it determined the document should not be made public, it would be stored "in a special area where national security related files are kept," the lawyer wrote.

(snipped)

More than a year later, the Fed's bailout of AIG remains controversial because it funneled nearly $70 billion to 16 big U.S. and European banks that had bought credit default swaps from AIG. Banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank had bought those insurance-like derivatives to guard against defaults on hundreds of securities backed by subprime mortgages.

(Much more..)

But this latest round of emails reveals that it was an official with the SEC in December 2008 who recommended that AIG and the New York Fed could seek confidential treatment for the Schedule A document as an alternative to making the entire document public.

whole thing here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60N1S220100124

[chill_wind]

12. self-delete error

[chill_wind]

13. ..

[elias7]

14. Paulson wasn't a name until this deal.

This is the deal where he got rich and then got famous. He was not billionaire hedge fund king at the time of his supposed influence.