The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility

Tag Archive for ‘Merrill Lynch’

Dodd-Frank Act: How Financial Reform May Be Going Wrong

Almost a year ago, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act into law. Now, some emerging roadblocks reinforce a fear that Dodd-Frank, which was intended to touch on almost every aspect of the American financial system, may never provide the sweeping reform it promised.

In Postcrisis Report, a Weak Light on Complex Transactions

Reporter Jesse Eisinger credits the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s just released report for being full of fascinating information and detail. Its biggest failing, he suggests, “is its timidity in engaging the most important question looming over the crash: What did Wall Street know and when did it know it?”

Banks’ Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis

Over the last two years of the housing bubble, Wall Street bankers perpetrated one of the greatest episodes of self-dealing in financial history. Faced with increasing difficulty in selling the mortgage-backed securities that had been among their most lucrative products, the banks hit on a solution that preserved their quarterly earnings and huge bonuses: They created fake demand.

Courts Fault Feds, SEC for Going Easy on Banks

When big banks have announced settlements with the Securities and Exchange Commission, ProPublica put those agreed-upon fines into perspective, and often found that even millions of dollars in fines aren’t too hard for these big financial firms to shell out. Judges, increasingly, seem to agree.

Bank of America Settles With SEC as NY AG Brings New Charges

Bank of America agreed to pay $150 million to settle a civil complaint brought by the Securities and Exchange Commisison in connection with its acquisition of Merrill Lynch in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis. Even as the SEC settlement was being announced, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced a separate lawsuit against Bank of America