Free Republic

Coming into Saturday, Oregon and Kansas State had the inside track to college football’s national championship and the Southeastern Conference’s run of six straight BCS titles was in jeopardy. Then No. 2 K-State got thumped 52-24 by unranked Baylor and top-ranked Oregon fell in overtime to No. 14 Stanford, 17-14. Now the SEC is alive and well. And how’s this for a possible national title game: Alabama vs. Notre Dame.

Pepco’s chief executive, Joseph Rigby, didn’t get a salary increase last year because of “customer reliability issues,” but he still managed to double his overall compensation, regulatory filings show. Thanks mostly to an employment deal and supplemental executive retirement plan, Mr. Rigby’s overall compensation rose to nearly $7.2 million last year, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. With hundreds of thousands of Pepco customers in the District of Columbia and Maryland left without electricity for days in sweltering temperatures after a violent storm Friday, Mr. Rigby’s compensation is likely to get a closer look as questions emerge about the...

The Big 12 and Southeastern Conference are hedging their BCS bets while borrowing an idea from the Rose Bowl. The two conferences announced Friday their football champions will meet in an undetermined bowl game if they are not chosen for the BCS' anticipated four-team playoff format. It is unclear if it will be a reoccurring site.

About Us Resources Send Tips Donate RSS CNSNews.TV On the Spot On the Scene The Schein OTJ Golden Hookah Clinton Labor Sec. Reich Dedicates New Book to Occupiers ‘Beyond Outrage’ urges readers to ‘organize’ against ‘regressive right.’ By Dan Gainor May 1, 2012 Subscribe to Dan Gainor's posts As the Occupy Wall Street Protests hit across the nation this May 1, it’s important to remember the support the group has received from the mainstream left. Backers have ranged from pundits like Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman to Hollywood artists like Kanye West, Mark Ruffalo, and Anne Hathaway. Former Clinton Labor...

* SEC says ex-CEO, ex-board member fabricated documents * Two charged with scheming to defraud a firm of $20 mln (Reuters) - A former chief executive of Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund, and a former board member were charged by federal regulators on Monday with scheming to defraud Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm, of more than $20 million in placement fees. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that Federico Buenrostro, a former chief executive of the California Public Employees' Retirement system, and Alfred Villalobos, a friend and former board member who became a placement agent,...

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Diane C. Blizzard has been named Associate Director for Regulatory Policy and Investment Adviser Regulation in the Division of Investment Management. As Associate Director, Ms. Blizzard will supervise two offices that develop recommendations for rulemaking and other policy initiatives under the Investment Company Act and the Investment Advisers Act. Ms. Blizzard replaces Robert Plaze, who has become Deputy Director of the Division. Ms. Blizzard has been a member of the Division of Investment Management staff for 12 years, most recently serving as Managing Executive. She has previously held several policy roles, including...

Washington, D.C., April 16, 2012 – The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged an online brokerage and clearing agency specializing in options and futures as well as four officials at the firm and a customer involved in an abusive naked short selling scheme. The SEC’s Division of Enforcement alleges that Chicago-based optionsXpress failed to satisfy its close-out obligations under Regulation SHO by repeatedly engaging in a series of sham “reset” transactions designed to give the illusion that the firm had purchased securities of like kind and quantity. The firm and customer Jonathan I. Feldman engaged in these sham reset transactions...

Bobby Petrino will not return as head football coach at Arkansas, multiples sources have told ESPN.com's Chris Low. The university has called an 8:15 p.m. ET press conference at which time athletic director Jeff Long will announce Petrino will not be back. The 51-year-old Petrino was put on paid leave last week after he didn't tell his boss right away that a 25-year-old female football program employee was riding with him during an April 1 motorcycle crash. Petrino, who is married with four children, also admitted to an inappropriate relationship. Also on Monday, a person familiar with the investigation confirmed...

Securities law firms are lining up to get a piece of the action after a class action lawsuit was filed against federally subsidized First Solar, Inc., allegedly because the company failed to disclose the massive costs it was incurring due to defects in its solar panels, leading investors to believe the company’s stock was worth more than its actual value. The complaint, filed by the New York-based Pomerantz, Haudek, Grossman, & Gross law firm, claims that First Solar executives – including founder Michael Ahearn and former CEO Robert Gillette – “made false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed...

Anyone who has traded with Goldman Sachs most likely knows it is always an adversarial relationship. Banks that trade do so for themselves and employees are compensated according to the profits made on the desk. That is the nature of the business. However, Goldman Sachs is primarily a trader. That is where the profits have come from not the rudimentary workings of banking. So to some extent those who complain about employee compensation should invest in some other business where talent is not rewarded. That said, there is a substantial difference between making a normal spread and carrying a book...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has notified the brokers who raised most of the private financing for taxpayer-backed electric automaker Fisker Automotive that charges may be brought against them, in connection with a private offering in 2009. The co-founders of Advanced Equities, Inc., Keith Daubenspeck and Dwight Badger, were served in January with Wells Notices by enforcement staff from the SEC’s Chicago office. The warning informs defendants of the preliminary results of an investigation, and that findings mean a recommendation for a full hearing before the commission is likely. The subjects of the investigation are given the opportunity to...

Suspended Auburn University point guard Varez Ward is under investigation by federal authorities in an ongoing point-shaving probe, Yahoo! Sports has learned. Three sources with knowledge of the case said the FBI has been investigating Ward since late February after he and guard Chris Denson were suspended by the Tigers prior to a Feb. 25 home game against Arkansas. Two sources said Denson was also questioned as part of the point-shaving investigation, but he was cleared of any wrongdoing and returned to the team after sitting out the loss to the Razorbacks. The sources said additional players have been questioned...

A well-connected company with close ties to a key Obama Administration official may be running afoul of the SEC by failing to report to its investors material events that significantly impact its bottom line. Just another day in Barack Obama’s Washington, DC “favor factory.” Capital Confidential has in the past covered the saga of PharmAthene, a company that produces “medical countermeasures to biological and chemical weapons” and its great fortune to have been awarded the sole-source contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). We have also learned that the firm has very close ties to Tara O’Toole,...

Judge Jed Rakoff has rejected the SEC’s proposed wrist slap of Citibank for selling mortgage-backed securities it knew to be of poor qualify. Effectively, what he did was join this complaint with SEC’s complaint–filed at the same time as they filed the proposed Citi settlement–against a Citi employee, Brian Stoker, in which the SEC explicitly alleged that Citi knew what it was doing when it dealt shitty securities it intended to short. By doing so, Rakoff imposed the same trial process on this complaint as on Stoker. Effectively, he’s saying, “If you’re prepared to prove that Stoker knew what he...

http://www.economicnoise.com/

Notre Dame football legend "Rudy" charged in alleged pump-and-dump stock schemeUpdated: Friday, December 16, 2011, 4:36 PM Daniel Ruettiger, the former walk-on football player at the University of Notre Dame who inspired the 1993 film “Rudy,” agreed to pay $382,000 to resolve U.S. regulatory claims he defrauded investors in his sports-drink company by touting fake taste tests and sales. Ruettiger and 12 others generated more than $11 million in illicit profits by artificially pumping up the stock of Rudy Nutrition, the firm Ruettiger founded, the SEC said in a complaint filed today at U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. The...

The Securities and Exchange Commission is suing six top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for lying to the public about their subprime mortgage exposure and misleading investors. Among those named in the suit are former Fannie CEO Daniel Mudd and former Freddie CEO Richard Syron. The Wall Street Journal has details of the SEC announcement: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives told the world that their subprime exposure was substantially smaller than it really was," said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division. "These material misstatements occurred during a time of acute investor interest in financial institutions'...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought civil fraud charges against six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying they misled the government and taxpayers about risky subprime mortgages the mortgage giants held during the housing bust. Those charged include the agencies' two former CEOs, Fannie's Daniel Mudd and Freddie's Richard Syron. They are the highest-profile individuals to be charged in connection with the 2008 financial crisis. Mudd, 53, and Syron, 68, led the mortgage giants when the housing bubble burst in late 2006 and 2007. The four other top executives also worked for the companies during...

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought civil fraud charges against six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying they misled the government and taxpayers about risky subprime mortgages the mortgage giants held during the housing bust. Those charged include the agencies' two former CEOs, Fannie's Daniel Mudd and Freddie's Richard Syron. They are the highest-profile individuals to be charged in connection with the 2008 financial crisis. Mudd, 53, and Syron, 68, led the mortgage giants when the housing bubble burst in late 2006 and 2007. The four other top executives also worked for the...

NEW YORK—The Securities and Exchange Commission sued several former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including their former chief executives, alleging they misrepresented to investors their exposure to subprime mortgage loans.