Goldman Sachs Group was charged with fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over its marketing of a subprime mortgage product, igniting a battle between Wall Street’s most powerful bank and the nation’s top securities regulator.
The civil lawsuit is the biggest crisis in years for a company that faced criticism over its pay and business practices after emerging from the global financial meltdown as Wall Street’s most influential bank.
It may also make it more difficult for the industry to beat back calls for reform as lawmakers in Washington debate an overhaul of financial regulations.
Goldman called the lawsuit “completely unfounded”, adding, “We did not structure a portfolio that was designed to lose money.”
The lawsuit puts Goldman chief executive Lloyd Blankfein further on the defensive after he told the federal Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in January that the bank packaged complex debt, while also betting against the debt, because clients had the appetite.
“We are not a fiduciary,” he said.
The case also involves John Paulson, a hedge fund investor whose firm Paulson & Co made billions of dollars by betting the nation’s housing market would crash. This included an estimated $1-billion from the transaction detailed in the lawsuit, which the SEC said cost other investors more than $1-billion. Paulson was not charged.
Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman vice-president whom the SEC said was mainly responsible for creating the questionable mortgage product, known as ABACUS, was charged with fraud.
Goldman shares slid 12,8% on Friday, closing down $23,57 at $160,70 on the New York Stock Exchange. The decline wiped out more than $12-billion of market value, and trading volume topped 100-million shares, Reuters data show.
The news dragged down broad US equity indexes, which fell more than 1%. The perceived risk of owning Goldman debt, as measured by credit default swaps, increased. Treasury prices rose as investors sought safe-haven government debt.
More severe than expected
“These charges are far more severe than anyone had imagined,” and suggest Goldman teamed with “the leading short-seller in the industry to design a portfolio of securities that would crash,” said John Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia Law School in New York.
“The greatest penalty for Goldman is not the financial damages — Goldman is enormously wealthy — but the reputational damage,” he said, adding that “it’s not impossible” to contemplate that the case could lead to criminal charges. Coffee spoke on Reuters Insider.
Goldman vowed to defend itself.
“The SEC’s charges are completely unfounded in law and fact,” it said. “We will vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation.”
Emails from former Washington Mutual CEO Kerry Killinger read aloud during a congressional hearing this week illustrated clients’ concerns about working with Goldman.
In 2007, Killinger discussed hiring Goldman or another investment bank to help Washington Mutual find ways to reduce its credit risk or raise new capital, according to one of the e-mails, which Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin read during the hearing.
“I don’t trust Goldie on this,” Levin quoted one of Killinger’s emails as saying. “They are smart, but this is swimming with the sharks. They were shorting mortgages big-time while they were giving [Countrywide Financial] advice.”
The SEC lawsuit announced on Friday concerns ABACUS, a synthetic collateralized debt obligation that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities, and which the regulator said Goldman structured and marketed.
According to the SEC, Goldman did not tell investors “vital information” about ABACUS, including that Paulson & Co was involved in choosing which securities would be part of the portfolio.
The SEC also alleged that Paulson took a short position against the CDO in a bet that its value would fall.
In a statement, Paulson & Co said it did buy credit protection from Goldman on securities issued in the ABACUS programme, but did not market the product.
Tourre was not immediately available for comment.
Goldman had not disclosed that the SEC was considering a lawsuit but had known charges were possible and had urged the SEC not to file them, people familiar with the situation said on Friday. The sources requested anonymity because the probe was not public.
To better understand CDOs, the SEC in 2008 approached some hedge funds, including Paulson & Co, whose investment Paulo Pellegrini was among those to talk with the regulator.
By betting against subprime mortgage-related debt, Pellegrini helped Paulson’s firm earn an estimated $15-billion in 2007. Pellegrini last year left to start his own firm.
Coming out swinging
The lawsuit is a regulatory and public relations nightmare for Blankfein, who has spent 18 months fending off complaints that Goldman has been an unfair beneficiary of taxpayer bail-outs of Wall Street.
Blankfein became chief executive less than a year before the product challenged by the SEC was created.
“This could be the beginning of a period where you have a regulatory cloud over Goldman Sachs, and perhaps even the entire investment banking industry,” said Hank Smith, chief investment officer at Haverford Trust in Philadelphia.
John Paulson is not related to Henry “Hank” Paulson, who was Blankfein’s predecessor as Goldman chief executive and later become US Treasury Secretary.
The SEC lawsuit represents an aggressive expansion of regulatory efforts to hold people and companies responsible for the nation’s financial crises.
It could help the regulator rehabilitate its reputation after missing other high-profile cases, including Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
“The SEC has come out swinging,” said Cary Leahey, senior managing director of Decision Economics in New York.
Robert Khuzami, head of the SEC’s enforcement division, said John Paulson was not charged because it was Goldman that made misrepresentations to investors, not Paulson.
Still, Khuzami called Paulson’s firm “a hedge fund that had a particular interest in the securities performing poorly.” – Reuters