Category Archives: Regulations and regulators

At INET Conference, Warren Adds Two Pieces to Her Financial Reform Framework

The reason I’m filling in today and tomorrow is that Yves is in Washington for the INET Finance and Society conference, which is unique because it features a dozen and a half speakers, every one of them a woman, from Fed Chair Janet Yellen to IMF Chair Christine Lagarde to the SEC’s Kara Stein to CFTC’s Sharon Bowen to Treasury’s Sarah Bloom Raskin to many more, from the U.S. and around the world. Anat Admati of Stanford University organized the event, and you can watch the webcast tomorrow at this link. Maybe you’ll spy Yves stalking the halls.

Fast Track/TPP: The Death of National Sovereignty, State Sovereignty, Separation of Powers, and Democracy

How the TPP, if passed and implemented, would create profound governance changes in the United States without benefit of the constitutional amendments that would normally be required to accomplish such changes.

We Made an SEC Private Equity Whistleblower Filing

We made an SEC whistleblower filing based on an astonishing admission by a private equity firm, Riverside Partners.

John Helmer: Ukraine Readies Itself for War When No One Wants to Pay for It

The IMF is finding it hard to put enough lipstick on the pig of financing Ukraine.

MSNBC’s Egalitarian Krystal Ball, and Her Husband Jonathan Dariyanani, Star of Numerous International Pump and Dumps

A shallow dive into the financial dealings of Krystal Ball of MSNBC and her husband Jonathan Dariyanani

The TPP: Toward Absolutist Capitalism

The TPP implies a form of absolute rule and enshrines capitalism as a principle of jurisprudence.

How Pending “Trade” Deals Would Undermine Zoning and Local Land Use Rules

A key principle of land use in the United States is that homeowners can often veto new buildings on nearby land that other people own. A trade agreement that’s currently in the works could have a huge impact on that long-established system of local control.

Elizabeth Warren Throws Down Gauntlet, Calls for Genuine Financial Reform

Elizabeth Warren makes a bold call for wide-ranging, serious financial reform.

“God Damn the Pusher Man” – Especially when Enabled by the FDA Revolving Door

Lambert here: Here, as generally, “the revolving door” seems a barely adequate metaphor for the pervasiveness of corruption involved; after all, the doors constantly revolve in a house of ill-fame, and it’s the nature of the house itself, not the wear and tear on the hinges of its doors, that is at issue.

Belvedere Management: Massive Criminal Enterprise or Defamed Fund Manager?

David Marchant says Belvedere Management is a “Massive Criminal Enterprise”. Has he gone mad, or hit the investigative journo’s jackpot?

The SEC’s Andrew Bowden to Leave the Agency

From the SEC this morning:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Andrew Bowden, Director of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), will leave the agency at the end of April to return to the private sector.

Don Quijones: “Bad Bank” Mania Spreads in Europe

Yves here. I’m not as negative about “bad banks” as Don Quijones is. He does mention the positive result in Sweden, and I hope Swedish Lex will pipe up in comments to add more insight. But the Spanish case is a horrorshow and others in Europe are troubling.

SEC Starts Issuing Wells Notices to Private Equity Firms (Updated)

We tweeted last week:

Rumor from a private equity source: "Heard a bunch of alts firms got Wells notices from the SEC"

— Yves Smith (@yvessmith) April 2, 2015

Our source was correct.

Presentation Shows Private Equity Investors Knowingly Sign Contracts With Waivers of Fiduciary Duty, Other Terms Stacked Against Them

We’ve pointed out that private equity investors, known in the trade as limited partners, enter into agreements with private equity firms that do a terrible job of protecting the investors’ interests. That sad reality is contrary to the urban legend propagated by the general partners, that the agreements are negotiated, that the limited partners are sophisticated and understand full well what they are getting into.

The evidence on the ground strongly suggests otherwise. Today, we’ll go through a document presented by a top lawyer for limited partners that shows how the general partners continue to skew the agreements even more in their favor, yet the outside legal guns fail to beat back these terms.