Biggy
01-25-2005, 01:22 PM
I say yes, I feel like every week I'm reading about big banks paying fines and settling out of court.
"Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley will each pay $40 million to settle civil allegations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that they improperly induced customers to bid up stock in exchange for granting the customers hot tech IPO allocations, people familiar with the matter said.
A settlement in the long-running case is expected to be announced as early as today. The firms will neither admit nor deny wrongdoing, said people knowledgeable about the terms. Spokesmen at Morgan and Goldman said they couldn't comment on pending regulatory matters. An SEC spokesman declined to comment.
The Wall Street Journal reported last June that the two firms were close to settling the allegations for a combined $80 million.
If concluded, the pacts could be the last in a series of probes into how Wall Street firms handled IPOs during the Internet stock bubble of 1999 and 2000, when IPOs routinely skyrocketed in their first day of trading. The cases at issue involve a practice known as "laddering," in which a firm obtains commitments from investors to buy additional stock at higher prices once a stock begins trading if they are to participate in a sought-after IPO. Regulators have said such activity can distort the market and potentially inflate stock prices.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. agreed in an October 2003 settlement to pay $25 million to resolve similar allegations. And the Credit Suisse First Boston unit of Credit Suisse Group in 2002 paid $100 million to settle civil regulatory charges over a variety of IPO-allocation practices. Both firms neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing."
Watch out for this line, you see it over and over again: "The firms will neither admit nor deny wrongdoing, said people knowledgeable about the terms."
"Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley will each pay $40 million to settle civil allegations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that they improperly induced customers to bid up stock in exchange for granting the customers hot tech IPO allocations, people familiar with the matter said.
A settlement in the long-running case is expected to be announced as early as today. The firms will neither admit nor deny wrongdoing, said people knowledgeable about the terms. Spokesmen at Morgan and Goldman said they couldn't comment on pending regulatory matters. An SEC spokesman declined to comment.
The Wall Street Journal reported last June that the two firms were close to settling the allegations for a combined $80 million.
If concluded, the pacts could be the last in a series of probes into how Wall Street firms handled IPOs during the Internet stock bubble of 1999 and 2000, when IPOs routinely skyrocketed in their first day of trading. The cases at issue involve a practice known as "laddering," in which a firm obtains commitments from investors to buy additional stock at higher prices once a stock begins trading if they are to participate in a sought-after IPO. Regulators have said such activity can distort the market and potentially inflate stock prices.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. agreed in an October 2003 settlement to pay $25 million to resolve similar allegations. And the Credit Suisse First Boston unit of Credit Suisse Group in 2002 paid $100 million to settle civil regulatory charges over a variety of IPO-allocation practices. Both firms neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing."
Watch out for this line, you see it over and over again: "The firms will neither admit nor deny wrongdoing, said people knowledgeable about the terms."