The Teflon Trader slips away again. For those who don’t know, Steve Cohen of SAC Capital, number 36 on Forbes’ Richest Americans list, has been under investigation for a good deal of his career. The suspicion is always the same, insider trading. And now Cohen’s firm is part of a settlement to pay $600 million [...]

In news that is not surprising to anyone with a firing neuron in their brain, a report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) finds that the incestuous nature of the SEC-Wall Street relationship caused reform efforts in the money market fund industry to fail. Former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staffers who now work [...]

Yesterday President Obama nominated Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. The administration and establishment media highlighted White’s experience as a prosecutor and hinted at the possibility of a more aggressive SEC. But now that there has been time to digest the nomination there seems to be some familiar problems. Mary Jo [...]

President Obama announced his nominees for heading the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today. Mary Jo White is the nominee to head the SEC. A former prosecutor and corporate attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton. Many are pointing to her experience as a prosecutor as an indication the Obama Administration might [...]

Regardless of my belief that Republicans are being ridiculous by trying to make a scandal out of the SEC allowing a public comment period for a rule change prompted by the JOBS Act, I think I’m pretty clear on the record about the SEC’s failings as a regulatory body. William Cohan wrote well on this [...]

Normally you would attack a regulator for corruption on their way in the door, not on their way out. But Patrick McHenry (R-NC) claims that SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, in one of her final acts, burnished her legacy by delaying a rule that would allow companies trying to go public to solicit donations through public [...]

Mary Miller, a Treasury Department official seen as the expected pick for the next head of the SEC, dropped out of contention yesterday, leaving an unclear path forward. Elisse Walter, who was designated as the new chair, replacing the departing Mary Schapiro, is seen as a stopgap pick. But her elevation to the top slot [...]

The White House, in announcing the departure of Mary Schapiro as Chairwoman of the SEC, also took the unusual step of “designating” her replacement – a way to fill the vacancy at the top of the commission without confirmation in the Senate. Elisse Walter, a current commissioner, will replace Schapiro. Here’s the announcement: President Obama [...]

Schapiro’s replacement matters. Simon Johnson kicked this off a few days ago, juxtaposing the bona fides of Treasury Department under secretary for domestic finance Mary Miller (a former mutual fund executive) against former Special Inspector General for TARP Neil Barofsky. There’s no question than an experienced prosecutor like Barofsky would change the SEC’s culture, but there’s almost no chance he will ever hold another job in Washington, as he was specifically told by Herb Allison right at the beginning of his book Bailout.

Continuing on the theme of prosecutions for fraud during the housing collapse, though in this case civil rather than criminal ones, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman just announced a new lawsuit against Credit Suisse for defrauding investors in its mortgage backed securities business. The case mirrors the previous suit filed by Schneiderman against JPMorgan [...]

We knew back when the poorly named JOBS Act passed into law that it would provide more opportunities for financial schemers to re-open bucket shops and rip off their clients with investment scams than provide opportunities for employment. And regulators tasked with implementing the law now see the same problems, which has caused delays in [...]