The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty: Restoring Law and Order on Wall Street

Mary Kreiner Ramirez; Steven A. Ramirez

Published by New York University Press 2017

The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty

Restoring Law and Order on Wall Street

Mary Kreiner Ramirez and Steven A. Ramirez

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479878529.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

A critical examination of the wrongdoing underlying the 2008 financial crisis

An unprecedented breakdown in the rule of law occurred in the United States after the 2008 financial collapse. Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and other large banks settled securities fraud claims with the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to disclose the risks of subprime mortgages they sold to the investing public. But a corporation cannot commit fraud except through human beings working at and managing the firm. Rather than breaking up these powerful megabanks, essentially imposing a corporate death penalty, the government simply accepted fines that essentially punished innocent shareholders instead of senior leaders at the megabanks. It allowed the real wrongdoers to walk away from criminal responsibility.

In The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty, Mary Kreiner Ramirez and Steven A. Ramirez examine the best available evidence about the wrongdoing underlying the financial crisis. They reveal that the government failed to use its most powerful law enforcement tools despite overwhelming proof of wide-ranging and large-scale fraud on Wall Street before, during, and after the crisis.

The pattern of criminal indulgences exposes the onset of a new degree of crony capitalism in which the most economically and political powerful can commit financial crimes of vast scale with criminal and regulatory immunity. A new economic royalty has seized the commanding heights of our economy through their control of trillions in corporate and individual wealth and their ability to dispense patronage. The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty shows that this new lawlessness poses a profound threat that urgently demands political action and proposes attainable measures to restore the rule of law in the financial sector.

Author / Editor information

Ramirez Mary Kreiner :

Mary Kreiner Ramirez is Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law, where she teaches a course on White Collar Crime. She is a former prosecutor for the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, where she prosecuted white collar criminals. She has published numerous articles addressing the challenges in combating white collar crime.Ramirez Steven A. :

Steven A. Ramirez is Professor of Law and Associate Dean at Loyola University of Chicago, where he also directs the Business and Corporate Governance Law Center.

Reviews

William K. Black,Associate Professor of Economics and Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City:
The authors were among the regulators and prosecutors with the spine to stop and jail financial frauds of the 1980s. Wall Street's criminal elites so feared the crackdown that they unleashed their political allies to turn the regulatory leaders into invertebrates. The authors show how to regrow our spines, restore the rule of law on Wall Street, and reclaim our Nation.

André Douglas Pond Cummings,Professor of Law, Indiana Tech Law School:
Exciting, well written, and potentially explosive an extremely timely topic and one that may well prove to be controversial and garner national and international attention. The topic is critically important, as I have not before seen this subject dealt with as forthrightly or marshalled as effectively as here. To truly understand that, unlike the Enron-era scandals or the Savings & Loans scandals, the government has failed to bring criminal charges against any of the individuals responsible for the financial market crisis of 2007-09 defies logic and comprehension.

Cheryl Wade,Harold McNiece Professor of Law, St. John's University School of Law:
The incontrovertible value of this book lies in the fact that while it informs average Americans about the details of potentially criminal conduct, it also provides policy discussions that include specific proposals for reformers. Mary Kreiner Ramirez and Steven A. Ramirez are excellent storytellers who expertly use salient narratives to support their theses.

Phil Angelides,Chairman, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009-2011):
Its abundantly clear that law enforcement on Wall Street is woefully broken. In the wake of the financial crisis, not one senior bank executive has been held accountable for the pervasive wrongdoing that brought our economy to its knees, undermining confidence in the fairness of our legal system as well as deterrence against future misconduct. The authors confront this troubling reality head on and in stark detail, leading readers into a fulsome debate about what is to be done to restore the rule of law to our financial markets.

The Case for the Corporate Death Penaltyprovides an inspired and thoughtful roadmap for knowing the new lawlessness, reviving the old rule of law, and reclaiming our democratic nation in the process.

In detailing the cases of Countrywide Financial, AIG Financial Products Group, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman, Sachs, among others, Ramirez and Ramirez find ample evidence to proceed with criminal indictments.

Political Science Quarterly:
Despite there being hundreds of books and articles written on the subject, only a few have directly tackled the issue of why the prosecutorial response was so anemic, and even fewer still with as much vigor or scope… For anyone trying to understand how the crisis originated and then filtered throughout the financial system, this book is an invaluable resource.

The Ramirezes have unleashed a powerful condemnation of governments weak-kneed response to corporate crime in their impressive new studyThe Case for the Corporate Death Penalty...[This]book helps us not only understand the scale of criminality among Americas financial elites, but also the dynamics which propel elites like Trump into office. If action is not taken to rein in the lawlessness which the Ramirezes so thoroughly reveal, the economic and social implications for America are terrifying.

This is an informative and at its heart very angry book, and is fascinating...reading for everyone whos still smarting from the crash.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. A Short History of White- Collar Criminal Prosecutions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
2. Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide’s “Toxic” Subprime Mortgages Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
3. Wall Street’s Fraudulent Sales of Toxic Mortgages Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
4. Lehman’s Phantom Cash Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
5. Joe Cassano and AIG’s Derivatives Casino Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
6. Goldman’s Abacus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
7. The Dimensions of Lawlessness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	178
Conclusion Looking Forward: Reimposing Law Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
About the Authors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Keywords: authorities; Corporate; Crime; economics; financial; Policing

eBook

Published: January 31, 2017
ISBN: 9781479878529