Ethics

Four days after the initial deadline, California and New York have finally agreed to sign on to the multi-billion dollar settlement with the nation’s five largest banks after being among the deal’s harshest critics as it was negotiated, according to Bloomberg. With these two large states in on the agreement, the settlement, which would go toward homeowner relief programs, could be valued as high as $39 billion, continued Bloomberg.

State attorneys general from 40 different states have accepted the terms of a $25 billion settlement from the nation’s largest banks over their role in the financial crisis, though New York and California, who have been seen as key players in the deal, have not, according to the Los Angeles Times, though this does not prevent them from signing on later.

While the deadline for the proposed $25 billion settlement with the nation’s largest banks over their roles in the economic crisis hits at the close of business today, some of the biggest state players, including California and New York, have yet to officially come on board for the deal, according to the Washington Post, a move that will significantly reduce its value.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced yesterday that it would hold a two-day public meeting in March to receive input on auditor independence and audit firm rotation.

President Barack Obama is in the process of forming a special unit within the Justice Department’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force devoted to investigating abusive lending and securitization practices during the buildup to the economic crisis, and has asked New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to lead it, according to MSNBC.

While the five largest banks have agreed to overhaul their mortgage lending practices and pay $25 billion as part of a settlement agreement over deceptive practices, some state attorneys general have balked at the proposed deal, despite political pressure from the White House to sign on, according to the Associated Press.

The roughly 98,000 men and women employed nationwide by the federal government ended FY 2010 owing about one billion dollars worth of unpaid back taxes, according to the Washington Post, $32 million higher than last year’s total, despite a slight dip in the number of delinquent employees.

Former New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine has probably not had a single good day since the collapse of MF Global, the commodities brokerage firm that he led through both its meteoric rise and spectacular failure, which resulted in more than a billion dollars just plain vanishing into thin air.

In a strong rebuke to the Securities and Exchange Commission practice of allowing companies to settle without admitting to any wrongdoing, a federal judge in Manhattan on Monday rejected a $285 million settlement that had been previously agreed upon between the commission and financial giant Citigroup over alleged fraud charges related to the financial crisis, according to the <

Japanese camera maker and medical equipment manufacturer Olympus, already the subject of a deepening investigation over what its leadership admitted was “extremely inappropriate accounting,” was dealt another blow this week as reports surfaced that the embattled company may have ties to the Yakuza, Japan’s largest organized crime syndicate, according to