Justin O’Brien 
Redesigning Financial Regulation [PDF ebook] 
The Politics of Enforcement

At the height of the 1990s boom, Jack Grubman, one of the most
successful analysts in Wall Street proclaimed ‚what used to
be conflicts of interest are now synergies‘. This myopia
contributed dramatically to the elevation of a culture in which
greed was deified, oversight denigrated and misfeasance justified.
Since the fall of the markets and the implosion of confidence in
the American corporate business model, one man has proved
instrumental in deconstructing the rhetoric of the 1990s: Eliot
Spitzer, the combative Attorney General of New York. In the
process, his innovative application of state law has reconfigured
the governance of Wall Street.

Over the past three years the pursuit of transparency and
accountability in the structure of the markets has propelled
Spitzer to the forefront of regulatory policy. His investigations
into tainted analyst research, the mutual funds industry, the
governance of the New York Stock Exchange and the insurance
industry have focused attention not just on corrupted individuals
but also the complicity of the financial structure itself. Spitzer
exploited the inherent conflicts of interest to the full, forcing
regulators to adopt a much more proactive approach and creating a
national platform for his own wider political ambitions. Now
holding the Democratic nomination for the Governorship of New York,
Spitzer has begun a path for higher national office.

This groundbreaking book features exclusive access with many of
the key actors in these changes to the governance of Wall Street.
It examines how Eliot Spitzer exploited gaps in the regulatory
framework to capture the corporate reform agenda and explores the
implications of his actions on policy formation and
recalibration.

Key incidents include: changing the terms of reference governing
analyst research; the defenestration of Dick Grasso’s tenure
over the NYSE (which is now being heard in state court in New
York); and the battles for control between the former Chairman of
the Securities Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, and Spitzer.

The book details not only the contested, contingent and
interdependent connections between the American political and
financial systems but reveals how Spitzer’s manipulation of
those connections have proved instrumental in enhancing his own
wider political ambitions.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Author’s note.

1 Redesigning financial regulation: the politics of
enforcement.

2 Taming the corporation? Sarbanes-Oxley and the politics
of symbolism.

3 Enforcing power: the contested role of Eliot Spitzer.

4 The limitations of the criminal process.

5 Corporate governance and the institutionalization of
compliance.

6 The efficacy and pitfalls of pre-trial diversion.

7 Global markets, regulatory enforcement and the dynamics of
corporate crime.

8 Transcending compliance.

Index.

Über den Autor

Justin O’Brien is Professor of Corporate Governance at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, based at the Australian National University. He previously ran the corporate governance programme at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast. He is the Principal Investigator of Regulatory Regime Change in World Financial Markets, an international research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Wall Street on Trial and the editor of Governing the Corporation, both published by John Wiley & Sons. Professor O’Brien has also written extensively on political corruption. His current research centres on the ethical dimension of managing conflicts in the financial services industry. He lives in Canberra.