Senate harshly questioned executives of Goldman Sachs
Posted on April 27, 2010 by mark
U.S. senators investigating the causes of the global economic crisis started in 2008 questioned today, under duress, the conduct of Goldman Sachs, global financial giant accused of pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars at the expense of customers.
The senators heard from senior executives, including Frenchman Fabrice Tourre, in the center of fraud allegations that securities regulators investigating the SEC and later interrogate the bank’s president, Lloyd Blankfein and his chief financial officer, David Viniar. Sachs Goldamn The SEC is investigating for allegedly selling in early 2007 to its customers of products linked to real estate assets at risk, without informing the bank was paid by a hedge fund to create a transaction that enabled the fund to bet against those same titles .
A nearly six months of the legislative elections in mid-term and full debate in Congress over how to end the “risk behaviors”, major Wall Street companies, officials of the bank faced embarrassing questions.
The chairman of the permanent investigative subcommittee of the Senate, Carl Levin, began questioning Daniel Sparks, head of the division of the bank mortgage on an email from June 22, 2007 he sent another executive, Thomas Montag, the it stated that a financial product called “Timberwolf” was a “fucking business.”
‘Business of shit’
“How many of these ‘fucking business’ sold to your customers?” Asked Levin, visibly exceeded. “You knew it was a fucking (…) business sold hundreds of millions of them,” he said. Annoyed, Spark said she did not remember stammering sold “hundreds of millions” of that financial product.
Lawmakers also heard Tourre French, Chief Financial Officer 31, who at the time of the events was vice president of structured products unit. He now works for Goldman Sachs in London. “I categorically deny the allegations in the SEC. And I will defend in court against these false accusations,” he said in perfect English Tourre. “I firmly believe that my conduct was proper,” he added.
In his speech, prepared and disclosed in advance, Blankfein said the bank would not bet against the housing market or their customers, and lost 1,200 million dollars with securities linked to residential real estate market. “We strongly disagree with the demand of the SEC, but I recognize that many people may misinterpret a transaction as complicated” as criticized by the SEC, says Blankfein in a statement. “We do not bet heavily against the housing market and certainly not bet against our clients,” Blankfein said.
Levin and the committee had already exchanged e-mails on Saturday involving some of the most senior managers of Goldman Sachs and showed that this bank was pocketing tens of millions of dollars through the collapse of real estate credit market risk. In parallel, 60 Democratic lawmakers from the House of Representatives on Monday asked the SEC to extend its investigations to 24 other products potentially fraudulent transactions linked to ultra-risk home loans from Goldman Sachs.