Goldman Sachs

cookie wrote:Goldman Sachs had some juridic problems
The American way solution to this problem: LOBBYING, LOBBYING, LOBBYING and some more LOBBYING !!!!!

As Goldman Sachs faced arguably one of its most challenging quarter in decades -- on several fronts, from SEC charges and lagging profits to financial regulatory reform and renewed scrutiny of all its activities -- the firm increased its spending on lobbying by almost 40% in the second quarter of 2010 and has already spent almost as much in the first half of this year as it did in all of 2009.

In its most recent lobbying report filed last night, Goldman spent $1.58 million to influence Congress and the White House on a host of issues including Wall Street reform -- specifically derivatives regulation, bank tax and financial risk management -- the much-debated unemployment benefits extension, municipal finance, small business funding, climate change legislation and transportation funding.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/21/goldman-sachs-spends-40-p_n_654149.html

more and more prove that the US political system is a failed system !!!!!!!!!!
as someone wisely noticed:

Forty years ago, we put a man on the moon, but we can't get Lobbyist out of Washington...

perhaps a solution to stop the lobbying, because it is now quite clear that the lobbyist are running the USA in name of the big corporations !!!!!!

there should be a non deductible 90% surtax applied to all lobbying done by banks, oil companies, defense contractors, airlines, and all their affiliates. Only exemptions are non profit groups.

“The financial industry has spent $251 million on lobbying so far this year,” spending more than any other interest group during the second quarter of the year as Congress worked on sweeping financial reform legislation. Wall Street’s spending was up 12 percent over the same period last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs fined £20m by UK's FSA

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs has been fined £20m ($31m) by the UK City regulator, the Financial Services Authority, the BBC has learned.

The fine is for failing to tell the FSA it was under investigation for fraud by the US financial watchdog this summer.

In July, Goldman settled the fraud charge with the Securities and Exchange Commission by paying $550m (£356m).

The £20m is one of the heaviest fines ever imposed by the FSA, said the BBC's business editor Robert Peston.

Both the FSA and Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the fine.

Goldman agreed to pay the US fine to settle civil fraud charges of misleading investors.

The charges concerned the bank's marketing of complex mortgage investments, just as the US housing market faltered.

The FSA said Goldman also did not tell them that Fabrice Tourre, the trader who helped to create these mortgage derivatives, was under investigation.

This it said was particularly relevant as Mr Tourre moved from the US to London, and therefore came under the auspices of the UK regulator.

Goldman has admitted that it made a mistake, our correspondent added.
Heavy losses

In April, the SEC charged Goldman with failing to disclose "vital information" that one of its clients, Paulson & Co, helped to choose which securities were packaged into a mortgage portfolio that was then sold to investors in 2007.

It claimed Goldman did not disclose that Paulson, one of the world's largest hedge funds, had bet that the value of the securities would fall.

The SEC alleged that investors in the mortgage securities, packaged into a vehicle called Abacus, lost more than $1bn (£646m) in the US housing market collapse.

In paying the SEC fine, Goldman did not admit legal wrongdoing but acknowledged that its marketing material for Abacus contained "incomplete information".

Many commentators felt at the time that the bank got off lightly.

The bank made a profit of $3.5bn in the first three months of this year, but saw its profits slump to $613m between April and June.

This was due to a drop in trading revenues, the $550m fine and a $600m hit from the bonus tax in the UK.

Despite the fall in profits and the fraud charges, Goldman Sachs is still considered by many to be world's preeminent investment bank

U.S. in Vast Insider Trading Probe

In another aspect of the probes, prosecutors and regulators are examining whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bankers leaked information about transactions, including health-care mergers, in ways that benefited certain investors, the people say. Goldman declined to comment.

Federal authorities, capping a three-year investigation, are preparing insider-trading charges that could ensnare consultants, investment bankers, hedge-fund and mutual-fund traders and analysts across the nation, according to people familiar with the matter.

But as with all investigations that aren't completed, it's unclear what specific charges, if any, might be brought.

Goldman Sachs sued over mortgage deal cited by SEC

By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A foundering bond insurer filed a civil fraud suit against Goldman Sachs Thursday over the same exotic mortgage securities deal in which Goldman paid $550 million last summer in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. charged that Goldman helped a major client, the hedge fund Paulson & Co., rig the billion-dollar deal by allowing the firm to pack it with securities backed by highly risky mortgages in early 2007 as the housing market was beginning to collapse.