Saturday, March 20, 2010

Lehman Whistle-Blower's Letter & Outrage About Regulator Bonuses


One person who has looked good in the Lehman mess is Matthew Lee. In May '08, Lee sent a letter to management detailing problems with firm accounting. The letter didn't mention Repo 105, though Lee told Lehman auditor E&Y about that a month later, it does mention several other issues. DealBook obtained the May 16, 2008 letter by Lee, and it's available for you to read. The letter was addressed to Martin Kelly, Lehman controller; Gerard Reilly, head of Capital Markets Product Control; CFO Erin Callan; Christopher O’Meara, Chief Risk Officer. Please click here for a link to Dealbook and the letter.

Did you see reports this week about government regulators' bonuses? FINS.com's Julie Steinberg wrote a piece and asked where's the outrage ?
Recent documents obtained by AP under the Freedom of Information Act show that government regulators received bonuses during the lead-up to the financial crisis. From 2003 to 2006, the FDIC, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the three offices that monitor most US banks), gave out $19 million in bonuses.

As FINS noted 'each employee wasn't taking home millions like ibanking brethren. But some took home thousands in a bonus that increased their salaries by 25%. Moreover, $8.4 million was allocated to financial examiners, the guys who are supposed to look at bank documents and catch potential problems. Oops. Guess these guys didn't deserve their perks, either.Bonuses totaling thousands of dollars don't make for scintillating sound bites, but American taxpayers should know what else their money funded.'

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