Top Wall Street lawyer takes aim at SEC in new book

One of Wall Street’s top lawyers is taking aim at one of Washington’s biggest regulators.

In his new book, “Going Public: My Adventures Inside the SEC and How to Prevent the Next Devastating Crisis,” veteran lawyer Norm Champ recounts his tumultuous five years at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Champ, now a partner at Kirland & Ellis, laments a “culture of fear and paranoia” spurred by anonymous complaints and backbiting. He ultimately stopped regulators from sharing information about investigations.

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 Trump’s SEC Nominee Has a Major Conflict-of-Interest Problem

Jay Clayton is tied to big banks and corporations—and that could hold up fraud enforcement.

The dominant theme of Thursday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing with Jay Clayton, nominee for chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, was conflict of interest. Not the well-documented conflicts of some of the more notorious members of the Trump administration but the conflicts of Clayton himself.

A partner at the high-powered corporate law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, Clayton represented Wall Street banks throughout his career. He served as Goldman Sachs’s lawyer during the Wall Street bailout, allowing it to emerge from the financial crisis relatively unscathed. He helped deliver failed investment bank Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase and other failed investment bank Lehman Brothers to Barclays. Hedefended Ally Financial in its foreclosure fraud settlement with the government and represented Deutsche Bank in its “mirror trade” Russian oligarch money laundering scandal. He was the lawyer of record with mortgage servicer Ocwen during a scandal so distasteful the CEO was forced to resign. Oh yeah, also his wife is a broker at Goldman Sachs. (She reportedly plans to step down upon Clayton’s confirmation.) Matt Taibbirightly suggested that Clayton would be “the most conflicted SEC Chair ever,” and given the history of SEC chairs, that’s saying a lot.

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Ocwen SEC filing reveals details of CFPB mortgage servicing investigation

During a call with investors to discuss the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, Ocwen Financial CEO Ron Faris said resolving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s investigation into the company’s mortgage servicing practices is a top priority in 2017.

In Ocwen’s third-quarter 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company revealed that it could be facing a fine and/or other disciplinary action from the CFPB.

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BNY Mellon Fined $6.6M By SEC For Loan Asset Omissions

Law360, New York (January 12, 2017, 7:32 PM EST) — The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. will pay $6.6 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle allegations that it supplied investors with misinformation by excluding about $14 billion in collateralized loan obligation assets from certain reported calculations.

BNY Mellon allegedly exlcuded $14 billion in CLO assets without regulatory permission when it calculated its risk-based capital ratios and risk-weighted assets, the SEC said on Thursday. As a result, the bank made misstatements in reports to investors from 2010 to 2014, constituting violations of…

Source: Law360

Jay Clayton, Wall Street lawyer, is Trump pick to lead SEC

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be the next top cop of Wall Street is Jay Clayton, an elite lawyer who has defended big banks for their financial crisis-era misbehavior.

Clayton has extensive ties to Wall Street. He advised Goldman Sachs on its government bailout and his wife Gretchen currently works at the bank as a private wealth advisor.

Trump announced his SEC pick on Wednesday and explained that Clayton’s background as a Wall Street lawyer will help unleash the “job-creating power” of the economy while still providing strong oversight.

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SEC Takes No Further Action Against Wells Fargo Over Portfolio Accounting

The Securities and Exchange Commission questioned how Wells Fargo & Co. valued and accounted for a portfolio of soured loans, but the agency concluded its review without further action, after the bank provided more information.

In a newly released exchange of letters between the SEC and the bank, the commission asked Wells Fargo in September about why the value at which it was carrying its “purchased-credit-impaired,” or PCI, mortgages was declining, as the cash the bank expected to realize from those loans was increasing relative to that value.

PCI mortgages are loans of deteriorating credit quality that Wells Fargo assumed when it bought Wachovia Corp. about eight years ago during the financial crisis.

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Trump considering former U.S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang as SEC chief

WASHINGTON — The job of being Wall Street’s top cop might once again go to a former prosecutor.

Debra Wong Yang, a former Los Angeles U.S. attorney with close ties to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, is under consideration for nomination as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to an official working with the transition team of President-elect Donald Trump. If Trump picks her, she would follow in the steps of the current chairman, Mary Jo White, who had also served as a federal prosecutor before taking over the SEC.

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Former SEC commissioner named to CFPB landing team by Trump transition team

An article in MarketWatch by Robert Schroeder states:

The teams work with the outgoing Obama administration at various federal agencies to smooth the transfer of power. They won’t necessarily be hired for full-time jobs, Trump transition officials have said. But members do give an indication Trump is sticking to certain past statements and campaign pledges.

Paul Atkins, a former Republican member of the Securities and Exchange Commission and a critic of heavy regulation, has been tapped for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau team — a creation of the Dodd-Frank law Trump says he’ll dismantle.

JPMorgan to pay $264 million to resolve China hiring probe: SEC, DoJ

JPMorgan Chase & Co (>> JPMorgan Chase & Co.) has agreed to pay U.S. authorities $264 million to resolve allegations it hired the relatives of Chinese officials in order to win banking deals, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department said in statements Thursday.

The SEC and Justice Department had been investigating over several years whether some of JPMorgan’s hiring efforts involved bribes, in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The SEC will receive $130 million of the settlement, with $72 million going to Justice and $61.9 million to the U.S. Federal Reserve, which penalized the bank “for unsafe and unsound practices.”

JPMorgan did not admit or deny the charges. As part of its settlement with the Justice Department, a Hong Kong unit of the bank admitted to making quid pro quo hiring agreements with Chinese officials to win investment business.

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JPMorgan Chase : to settle U.S. government probe of China hiring

The bank will pay roughly $200 million combined to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department and more than $50 million to the Federal Reserve, the source said.

There will not be any individual prosecution at this time, the source said.

The SEC opened an investigation into JPMorgan in 2013 over the hiring. The Justice Department opened a parallel investigation around the same time.

Investment banks have a long history of employing the children of China’s politically connected. While close ties to top government officials are a boon to any banking franchise across the world, they are especially beneficial in China, where relationships and personal connections play a critical role in business decisions.

The SEC, JPMorgan and the Justice Department all declined to comment.

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