Fraud, Securities Fraud | featured news

Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein has hired Reid Weingarten, a high-profile Washington defense attorney whose past clients include a former Enron accounting officer, according to a government source familiar with the matter.

Investors who were misled into purchasing complex mortgage securities just before the housing market collapsed will receive all their money back.

American International Group Inc. agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running securities lawsuit alleging that the company several years ago engaged in insurance bid-rigging and inflated its stock price and insurance reserves.

A Senate investigation into the financial crisis has found that Goldman Sachs, the storied Wall Street investment bank, sought to profit from the historic decline in housing prices by betting against the US mortgage market.

Representative Barney Frank said on Monday that securities regulators' fraud case against Goldman Sachs increases the chance that financial reform will pass.

In a civil suit filed Friday, the S.E.C. accused the investment bank of securities fraud over a deal in which Goldman profited from bets against products it sold to customers.

Barrett Wissman is the first investment executive to be implicated in an investigation of corruption at the New York state pension fund.