Shareholders nemen leiding GS op de korrel

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Het begin van een tsunami aan rechtzaken.
Dus een bonanza voor advokaten.
Benadeelden, die niet betrokken zijn in _deze_ rechtzaak, zullen op het
puntje van hun stoel zitten om geen nuance van de rechtzaak te missen.

Groet / Cees

Goldman Sach's CEO and board are named in shareholder lawsuits
Posted 1d 20h ago
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2010-04-23-goldman-shareholder-lawsuits_N.htm

By Bernard Condon, Associated Press
NEW YORK — Goldman Sachs's CEO and other top officers are accused in a
pair of shareholder lawsuits of lax oversight in deals involving risky
mortage-backed securities that later went bad.

The lawsuits filed Thursday in New York State Supreme Court name Lloyd
Blankfein and the firm's entire board of directors as defendants.

The suits follow civil fraud charges filed last week by the Securities
and Exchange Commission over the same investments.

The SEC says Goldman committed fraud by failing to disclose important
information about the securities that might have scared off investors.

The two suits, filed by shareholders Robert Rosinek and Morton Spiegel,
accuse Blankfein and other officers of "systematic failure" over 3 1/2
years for not properly vetting 23 mortgage-linked deals at the center of
the SEC suit. Those deals, called Abacus, led to $1 billion in losses.

A Goldman spokesman declined to comment.

The suits appear to be the first shareholder cases related to the Abacus
deals. If so, they may mark the start of what legal experts expect will
be a flood of shareholder cases against Goldman Sachs.

The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages.

The mortgage-backed securities at the heart of the lawsuits are widely
blamed for worsening the financial system's troubles by allowing
investors to place massive bets on the direction of the housing market.
That triggered major losses at a number of financial institutions after
the housing market started to crumble.

As in the SEC case, the shareholders allege that Goldman should have
noted in marketing the Abacus securities that a hedge fund betting they
would fall in value had helped choose the mortgages on which they were
based.

Within a few months of being sold to investors, the value of the Abacus
securities fell fast. The hedge fund, Paulson & Co., run by billionaire
John Paulson, pocketed $1 billion in profits, the suits says.

Paulson has not been accused of wrongdoing by SEC, and is not as a
defendant in the shareholder cases.

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********