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...generally "insufficiently cognizant of institutional protocol," supervisors later complained in congressional testimony. "Frighteningly, it appeared that Mr. Aguirre was pursuing a personal agenda bordering on vendetta," recalled Mark Kreitman, assistant director of the enforcement division, who was his former professor at Georgetown and one of his supervisors at the SEC. Aguirre claims all these accusations were concocted after the fact, and were never part of his paper record. He had just gotten a raise, and had glowing evaluations before the meltdown, he notes; as for his "unprofessional" deposition of Samberg, Hilton Foster, a now retired staff trainer, wanted to include...
...Mack was in fact eventually questioned by the SEC on August 1, 2006, more than 13 months after Aguirre had first proposed, but the Pequot investigation was officially closed on November 30 of that same year. The SEC's case closing recommendation, dated November 30, 2005, states that "the staff has been unable to find any evidence that Pequot had information regarding the merger between GE and Heller before the merger was publicly announced, much less that anyone tipped Pequot or Samberg about the merger in advance of its announcement. The staff's investigation found it extremely unlikely that Mack...
...Almost two years after being fired, Aguirre won some measure of vindication in the Congressional report. "Our investigation has uncovered real failures at the SEC, and fixing those problems will take real reforms," said Senator Charles Grassley when he introduced the executive summary into the Congressional record on August 3. Among other conclusions, Grassley said the report found that Aguirre's firing was "closely connected" to his objections to the "special treatment" afforded to John Mack. Grassley complained that "Mack's prominence protected him from the initial SEC inquiry, protection that would not have been afforded him had he been...
...Some securities lawyers, as well as SEC veterans, view the report as deeply flawed. "I have never seen any situation or instance where somebody has made a judgment based on the who, and the influence, and the power; I don't think that's the way they make judgments," argues William McLucas, a 20-year SEC veteran, and former enforcement division chief, who now works for the prominent D.C. law firm WilmerHale...
...Lynn Turner, a former SEC chief accountant, considers the SEC one of the great governmental agencies but applauds the "excellent" report for highlighting its numerous flaws. "These investigators really lay out for the public what really happens on Wall Street and how the securities defense bar protects them," says Turner, referring to what he says is rampant insider trading. "This could have been a blockbuster case, it gets at the heart of what is the problem with Wall Street hedge funds." Of particular concern to Turner and others is that Congress continues to "bleed" the SEC of staff and resources...