SEC chairman says agency examining companies’ pre-meltdown conduct
By APWednesday, March 17, 2010
SEC boss: Agency examining companies
WASHINGTON — The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission says the agency is investigating several companies’ actions in the run-up to the financial crisis of 2008.
SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said Wednesday “it would be safe to assume” that the agency is looking very carefully at the conduct of a number of firms during this time.
Schapiro spoke in testimony to a House Appropriations subcommittee weighing the agency’s request for about $1.3 billion for the budget year starting Oct. 1. She did not name the companies.
Lawmakers want to know if the sort of accounting gimmick recently uncovered that was used by the collapsed giant Lehman Brothers to mask billions in debt was widely deployed on Wall Street.
