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Sen. Elizabeth Warren renewed her inquiry Tuesday into whether government officials have conducted any analysis into the trade-offs of settling an enforcement action without requiring an admission of guilt versus going to trial.
May 14 -
Senate Banking Committee members took turns Thursday questioning several top financial regulators on the implementation of Dodd-Frank, but freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren turned up the heat on the lack of bank prosecutions.
February 14
WASHINGTON Sen. Elizabeth Warren is urging regulators to disclose the extent of their efforts to pursue cases against individuals and institutions, highlighting the work of the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
The Massachusetts Democrat noted in a letter Wednesday that SIGTARP has been able to secure numerous criminal and civil convictions since December 2008, despite having a vastly smaller budget and staff relative to the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The TARP watchdog, among other things, has sent 51 defendants to jail, temporarily suspended or permanently banned 37 individuals from working in the banking industry or as a federal government contractor or licensed attorney. In total, it has brought criminal charges against 144 people, including 92 senior officers, with convictions against 107 defendants, and initiated civil cases and other actions against 58 individuals, including 44 senior officers. It has also recovered $4.3 billion in restitution and civil judgments.
"There have been some landmark settlements in recent weeks for which your agencies and others deserve substantial credit," Warren wrote in the letter to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry and SEC Chair Mary Jo White. "However, a great deal of work remains to be done to hold institutions and individuals accountable for breaking the rules and to protect consumers and taxpayers from future violations. Strong enforcement is an important deterrent, and I believe transparency is critical."
Warren asked the three regulators for a tally of the total number of individuals and the number of senior officers the agencies charged criminally and civilly between 2009 and 2012, along with the number of convictions obtained, punishments doled out and the amount of funds received through orders of restitution and civil judgments.
