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Here's a an article, "Lawmakers Pursue Financial Crisis Prosecutions," appearing yesterday in the Wall Street Journal's DEALBOOK by Cyrus Sanati:

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/lawmakers-pursue-financial-crisis-prosecutions/

"...Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned three of Wall Street's top cops on Wednesday, including Robert Khuzami, the enforcement director of the Securities and Exchange Commission, in an effort to examine why they had not done more to prosecute individuals and securities firms that may have played a part in creating the financial crisis.

Several senators said they were frustrated by the lack of prosecutions of high-level officials, bankers and corporate board members, who they believe acted improperly during the crisis.

Mr. Khuzami, along with Lanny Breuer, the assistant attorney general of the criminal division at the Justice Department, and Kevin Perkins, the F.B.I.'s assistant director in charge of its criminal investigative division, told lawmakers that they had stepped up their enforcement efforts amid the fallout from the crisis and pleaded for more time in establishing cases against individuals and corporations that may have acted improperly during the crisis.

'Why aren't we seeing more board room prosecutions?' Senator Ted Kaufman, the Democrat from Delaware, who headed the hearing, asked the three men.

'Senator these are complicated cases - don't for a moment think that they are not being pursued and investigated,' Mr. Breuer responded. 'The folks that perpetrated these crimes took a long time in hatching and developing - and bringing the cases will take a long time, but they will be brought.'

Mr. Khuzami noted that the S.E.C. had already gone after top officials in the mortgage industry like Angelo R. Mozilo, the head of Countrywide Financial, but noted that other areas of the financial industry are bit more complicated for them to search out wrongdoing.

'There are lots of levels between someone who executes a trade or issues a product and the C.E.O. or C.F.O. may well not have known the full extent of what was going on,' Mr. Khuzami said. 'White-collar cases are distinguishable from terrorism or drug crimes for the primary reason that often people are plotting their defense at the same time they are committing their crime.'

Mr. Perkins from the F.B.I. said a new interagency financial fraud enforcement task force created last month would help in speeding up the process and could lead to more prosecutions down the road.

'We have a good bit of liaison already between the groups,' Mr. Perkins said, but the task force 'will force us to come together, share that information and employ that sense of urgency' when it comes to issues of financial fraud.

Mr. Khuzami asked lawmakers to pass legislation that would give the S.E.C. regulatory oversight of hedge funds as well as legislation that would require over-the-counter derivatives to be cleared on an exchange. He also asked for more funding to augment the S.E.C.'s staff of 1,100, which is responsible for overseeing around 35,000 separate entities..."

One might look at this democracynow.org article to find some answers: "As Obama Golfs with UBS CEO Days After Firm Avoids Criminal Prosecution, UBS Whistleblower Given 40-Month Jail Term"

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/27/as_obama_golfs_with_ubs_exec

Take a moment to read it.

- Ed Smith, Publisher
The EHS Letter Manual