11/19, "Cuomo sues Rattner, suit seeking Wall Street ban spoils ex-car czar's big day," Wall St. Journal, Corkery and Rothfeld
"Steven Rattner began Thursday basking in the glow of a job well-done, as the one-time auto czar watched General Motors Co. emerge from a government bailout to be warmly received by the stock market again.
- Then, a nemesis took the shine off the day: New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a pair of lawsuits to ban Mr. Rattner, a Wall Street star, from the securities industry in New York for the rest of his life. And Mr. Cuomo asked that
- he pay $26 million in damages, too.
The suits—alleging that Mr. Rattner used special favors to win a $150 million investment from the state pension fund—were announced minutes after Mr. Rattner, who helped engineer the government-backed rescue of GM, concluded
- an early-morning CNBC appearance to celebrate the auto maker's $23 billion initial public offering.
The back-and-forth was the latest in a legal skirmish that has turned venomous. It pits Mr. Rattner,
- a stalwart of Manhattan's Democratic elite
who manages the personal fortune of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
- against Mr. Cuomo, the state's Democratic governor-elect."...
"Steven Rattner, Obama's former car czar, is forking over $6.2 million and is banned from associating with any investment advisor or broker-dealer for two years, in a settlement with the SEC, avoiding further court action over his role in a pay-to-play investment scheme over New York State pension funds. Chad Bray and Michael Rothfeld of the WSJ explain:
'Regulators have been probing allegations that members of former New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi's office and a former political advisor essentially sold access to New York's $125 billion Common Retirement Fund, one of the country's largest pension funds.In its lawsuit, the SEC alleged that Mr. Rattner secured investments for his former firm, Quadrangle Group LLC, after he arranged for a firm to distribute a low-budget film that was produced by David Loglisci, the retirement fund's chief investment officer, and his brothers.
Mr. Rattner, under pressure from former Hevesi political advisor Henry "Hank" Morris also allegedly arranged a $50,000 contribution to Mr. Hevesi's reelection campaign in 2006, the SEC said.
Of course Rattner denies all wrongdoing, and still faces a suit from the New York Attorney General (and governor-elect) Andrew Cuomo..."...
Things could get very interesting for the man who, despite zero auto industry experience,
"In a radio interview on Thursday morning, Mr. Cuomo said Mr. Rattner had exercised his fifth amendment right not to answer questions 68 times under oath. Asked about whether Mr. Rattner could face criminal charges, the attorney general said, "On the question of criminality, it is an ongoing investigation."- ruled over our largest manufacturing sector:
Mr. Cuomo claims in part that Mr. Rattner paid more than $1 million in sham placement fees to Mr. Morris, who then used his influence
to steer investments from the retirement fund to Quadrangle."
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