November 27, 2011

Sunday, November 27th, Richard and Joe interviewed Gary Aguirre. Mr. Aguirre primarily assists clients throughout California with investor and whistleblower claims involving banks, hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity funds, brokers, and other financial institutions. He focuses on claims arising out of market abuse (e.g., market manipulation, flash trading, insider trading, naked shorting), investment fraud, bribes to foreign officials under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the filing of false claims under federal or California law (qui tam statutes).

His June 2006 testimony  before the Senate Judiciary Committee described in detail how lax SEC enforcement was allowing Wall Street to recreate the conditions that delivered the 1929 Crash. In October 2007, as keynote speaker in an international securities conference, Mr. Aguirre warned a Wall Street audience of 800 that the same two dynamics that delivered the 1929 Crash—market abuse and Wall Street leveraging—were unchecked by regulators and out of control.  One month before Bear Stearns collapsed, his letter warned the Senate Banking Committee the nation’s banks and in particular Bear Stearns was at risk due to off-the-balance-sheet exposure in subprime debt and “$42 trillion in CDS [which] differ little from gambling.” In September 2008, Mr. Aguirre anchored a debate team at the Sibos conference, one of the world’s largest banking conferences, on the causes of the financial crisis. On September 28, 2008, Mr. Aguirre circulated an email to the leadership of key Congressional committees describing why the “bailout bill” is “Main Street’s Gift to Wall Street.” The following day, September 29, 2008, Mr. Aguirre’s projections on the costs of the bailout were cited on the floor of the House during the debate over TARP.

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