Fed employee fired for refusing to change Goldman Sacks investigation results

[LazyBoy]

According to her lawsuit

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news...-1226738525418

[Rajiv]

Re: Fed employee fired for refusing to change Goldman Sacks investigation results

This is the big problem with crony capitalism and the revolving door policy. The Brits had it right by having a well paid dedicated civil service.

[photon555]

Re: Fed employee fired for refusing to change Goldman Sacks investigation results

Our civil service is well paid. I'm not sure what they might be dedicated to. Judging by their actions most people today seem to be fairly well dedicated to their own perceived immediate self interest.

[GRG55]

Re: Fed employee fired for refusing to change Goldman Sacks investigation results

Our civil service is well paid. I'm not sure what they might be dedicated to. Judging by their actions most people today seem to be fairly well dedicated to their own perceived immediate self interest.

It would appear this may be what is going on in this well publicized instance.


NY Fed’s Fired Goldman Examiner Makes Weird Case

Oct 17, 2013 4:00 PM


It’s one of those storylines that was too good for the news media to pass up: A former examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York claims she was fired because she refused to change her unflattering findings about Goldman Sachs Group Inc. And now she is suing her former employer...

...Much of the news coverage Segarra has received has been favorable. Yet something is amiss here. What I found most striking about her complaint was its poor construction. Some of what she has asserted is just plain bananas.

One of her core allegations -- that Goldman Sachs lacked a companywide policy on conflicts of interest -- is undercut by an exhibit she filed with the court that shows it did. Some of her assertions don’t seem credible, such as the notion that other Fed officials worried that public disclosure about the lack of a proper conflicts policy could cause Goldman Sachs to explode. Nobody in their right mind would believe such a thing, and it’s difficult to believe anyone at the New York Fed did...

...Segarra alleges that Silva and Koh in May 2012 “attempted to force her to change the findings of her examination of Goldman,” because “they said they did not believe her finding that Goldman had no conflict of interest policy was ‘credible.’” She says that she was fired soon after she refused.

A May 2012 e-mail exchange that Segarra filed with her complaint shows why they had trouble accepting what she said. The first e-mail, sent by her, shows she told Silva and others: “Just to confirm, Goldman Sachs does not have a conflicts of interest policy, not firmwide, and not for any divisions.”Silva replied two days later that he had said the same thing at a recent meeting, relying in part on her statements, only to be proven wrong. He said it was pointed out to him after the meeting that Goldman Sachs, in fact, had a written code of conduct that included a conflicts-of-interest section, which he pasted into his e-mail back to Segarra. He also sent her links to the code of conduct and a separate report released by Goldman Sachs’s business-standards committee, which included a 10-page section on conflicts of interest.

Now, it’s possible that Goldman Sachs’s policies on conflicts didn’t comply with the Fed’s requirements. (Segarra’s lawsuit says they didn’t.) It’s also true that Segarra’s court filing shows she described the problem she saw at the company in a way that was overly broad. “In light of these documents, repeated statements that you have made to me that GS does not have a COI policy AT ALL are debatable at best, or alternatively, plainly incorrect,” Silva wrote back to her.

Maybe she has a winning case anyway. That will be for the court to sort out. But let’s be careful not to lionize Segarra as a whistle-blower just yet. Important parts of what her lawsuit says don’t make sense.