A report released by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) condemns the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission for “prosecutorial timidity” in dealing with well-financed corporations and calls accountability for corporate crimes “shockingly weak.”
The 13-page Rigged Justice report released yesterday highlights 20 civil and criminal cases that Warren says demonstrate federal agencies’ “problematic” and “limp” prosecution of corporate crimes last year that does little to deter criminal activity, either due to “limited resources or a lack of political will.”
The cases highlighted as federal enforcement failures range from General Motors Co.’s cover-up of ignition switch problems in its vehicles to charges that ratings agency Standard & Poor’s defrauded investors when it issued inflated ratings that misrepresented credit risks of residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations — one of the chief causes of the 2008 financial crisis, the report notes.
“When government regulators and prosecutors fail to pursue big corporations or their executives who violate the law, or when the government lets them off with a slap on the wrist, corporate criminals have free rein to operate outside the law,” the report from Warren’s office states. “They can game the system, cheat families, rip off taxpayers, and even take actions that result in the death of innocent victims — all with no serious consequences.”
Corporations reached government settlements that didn’t require them to admit guilt or hold accountable individual executives in many of the 20 cases outlined in the report.
“These corporations paid millions — or billions — of dollars to make these cases disappear before any public hearing,” states the report, the first in what Warren’s office said will be an annual series on corporate crime enforcement.
