Goldman Paying $550 Million to Settle Civil Fraud Charges
July 16th, 2010Pocket lint.
Via: ABC:
Resolving a high-profile government case linked to the mortgage meltdown, Goldman Sachs & Co. has agreed to pay a record $550 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex investments.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement Thursday with the Wall Street titan, just hours after Congress gave final approval to legislation imposing the stiffest restrictions on banks and Wall Street firms since the Great Depresssion.
For Goldman, it was a chance to put behind it a case that had tarnished its reputation after it emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis. For the SEC, emerging from the embarrassment of a series of lapses, the charges and the settlement were a high-stakes opportunity to prove it could be tough on Wall Street.
And the agency’s sweeping investigation of the conduct of financial firms in the run-up to the mortgage market collapse could bring more cases.
The deal calls for Goldman to pay a $535 million fine and $15 million in restitution of fees it collected. Of the total $550 million, $300 million will go to the government and $250 million goes to compensate two European banks that lost money on their investments.
The penalty was said to be the largest against a Wall Street firm in SEC history. But the settlement amounts to less than 5 percent of Goldman’s 2009 net income of $12.2 billion after payment of dividends to preferred shareholders — or a little more than two weeks of net income.
“AIG to pay $725 million to settle fraud case”
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66F5JO20100716
Pocket lint indeed.
As with so many travesties Goldman Sachs has been part and parcel of, I’m waiting for someone with more creds than me to question and start an investigation into why Goldman sold about 40 per cent of their holdings in BP just about two weeks before the blow out and resulting travesty in the Gulf. There is something SO WRONG In this situation.
GOLDMAN SACHS, NOT BP in my humble opinion is the BAD TO THE BONE, Lacking Heart and Soul entity that should be DEMONIZED, SHUNNED, SPURRED, and have so many lawsuits against it that it suffocates to death.
There is something evil in Goldman Sachs, really evil. They apparently, at least at this time and place, RULE the World.
Would be nice to figure out a way to Fluck them UP, BigTime.