The kickoff meeting of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission earlier this month, impaneled to root out the causes of the Wall Street meltdown in 2008 and 2009, is only one of many Washington-backed investigations to come this year. Corporate executives should plan accordingly.
Executives from Wall Street have already been called before the FCIC to testify, in an exercise that was one part inquiry and one part political theater. Michael Bopp, a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, recently hosted a Webcast on the FCIC’s ambitions and other congressional investigations likely to pull Corporate America into their orbit. “Make no mistake: The [FCIC] understands that its responsibility goes well beyond taking a look at what went wrong within the financial regulators of the government,” he said. The panel plans to pursue any companies that it believes “participated in the markets when the financial crisis occurred.”
