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Eliot Spitzer.(Interview)
Behind every great corporate scandal is a great reformer. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has sought that mantle ever since the popping of the 1990s tech bubble rocked Wall Street, exposing deep conflicts of interest inside its investment banks. Last week U.S authorities, led by Spitzer, announced an unprecedented $1.4 billion settlement with 10 of Wall Street's top firms. Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney unit, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston were accused of fraud for pressuring analysts to give favorable reports on troubled companies, in order to lure their investment-banking business. Five other firms were charged with issuing "exaggerated" research reports. The settlement puts aside $387.5 million to compensate investors who can prove they were duped by tainted research.
None of the firms charged have admitted or denied wrongdoing, but they have agreed to institute reforms designed to insure that analysts are giving honest opinions, including the creation of a real fire wall between the analysts and investment bankers. NEWSWEEK's Michael Hastings spoke to Spitzer about his victory and where Wall Street stands today:
NEWSWEEK: Does Wall Street get it?
SPITZER: I am persuaded that most of the leadership on Wall Street understands that the structural changes that are captured in the global settlement are necessary and good for Wall Street. There are inevitably going to be some who are more resistant than others, but by and large the leadership is embracing the need for change.
Has the bad-apple argument--just a few guys spoiling the whole bunch-- been disproved?
I think it's been disproved by the pervasive nature of the structural flaws that led to this behavior. The critical point that we were trying to make last year--and [that] has been established by the voluminous evidence that is now in the public record--is that the entire structure of research had been undermined by making it subservient to investment banking. It was more than a few bad actors.
What are the key structural reforms?
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...too small to affect Wall Street's behavior and those...York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The doubters are wrong...that can assure that Wall Street analysts operate independently...the greed that drove Wall Street to seek investment banking...
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- Newspaper article from: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) October 27, 2002 700+ words
...September, her opponent, Eliot Spitzer, got the same exposure without...Bernie Ebbers. Allegations of Wall Street investment firms inflating...live in the skyscrapers on Wall Street. He's spent the past few...firms. He's pried into Wall Street's e-mail, questioned...
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- Magazine article from: Futures (Cedar Falls, Iowa) Collins, Daniel P. February 1, 2004 700+ words
...moves were prompted in part by the threat of competition from Eurex. Bottoms Watching the watchdog Eliot Spitzer continued tackling Wall Street and fouling the SEC. In September, New York Attorney General Spitzer turned his investigatory eye...
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- Magazine article from: Interview Norton, Edward October 1, 2006 700+ words
EDWARD NORTON: Imagining your grown-up life when you were 15, what did you think you'd be doing? ELIOT SPITZER: Not this. People presume that you only end up in a position like the one I'm in if you've spent your whole life focused...
