Tag Archive: meeting logs

Goldman Sachs, financial firms flood agencies to influence financial law, new Dodd-Frank tracker shows

by Nancy Watzman

investigations

Jul 18, 2011 11:32 am

Investment bank Goldman Sachs, one of the major players in the crisis that led to the economic meltdown of 2008, has had more meetings with government officials about the implementation of the law intended to reform the financial system than any other company or organization, an analysis of nearly a year’s worth of financial agency meeting logs shows.

The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has made those logs--published by five separate federal agencies--available in one location in and easy-to-search format, updated to include the most current information on contacts between officials and private interests seeking to influence federal regulators.

Agency ...

Poised to make decision on regulating foreign swaps, Geithner meets with banks wanting exemption

by Nancy Watzman

investigations

Apr 7, 2011 10:02 am

In February, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with the CEO and two top-level executives from the London-based bank HSBC to discuss the issue of foreign exchange swaps.

The bank, which has a thriving foreign exchange business, wants Geithner to exempt such swaps from new rules designed to bring transparency to the derivatives market. Under the Dodd-Frank financial law, Geithner was given authority to make this decision, which he is expected to announce any day.

Amounting in the trillions of dollars per day, foreign exchange swaps are used in business to hedge bets on transactions involving different currencies. Typically, two parties ...

Geithner meets with Obama campaign fundraiser

by Nancy Watzman

investigations

Mar 4, 2011 11:36 am

Penny Pritzker, who served as President Obama’s finance chair during his 2008 campaign and whose name was mentioned as a possible U.S. Commerce Secretary, met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and several other top government heavyweights to discuss Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), according to meeting logs released by the agency this week.

In 2008, Pritzker who has a stake in several real estate and hotel businesses across the country, came under scrutiny for her role in a failed bank that made subprime loans in the leadup to the financial crisis. Pritzker said at the time that the bank ...

Small banks continue lobbying winning streak at FDIC

by Nancy Watzman Dec 2, 2010 3:11 pm

When the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation proposed new rules in early November that would hit big banks harder than small ones when assessing fees for the exhausted deposit insurance fund, community bankers--who had aggressively lobbied first Congress and then in recent months the independent agency--declared victory.

"The FDIC today took an important step in leveling the playing field for the nation's community banks," said Jim McPhee, chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) in a statement at the time. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) meeting logs show that Independent Community Bankers of America representatives met four times with agency officials since August, when the agency first put meeting records on-line in a bid to increase transparency.