US Senator Carl Levin: “And when you heard that your employees, in these e-mails, when looking at these deals, said God, what a shitty deal, God what a piece of crap – when you hear your own employees or read about those in the e-mails, do you feel anything?"
David Viniar, chief financial officer, Goldman Sachs: “I think that’s very unfortunate to have on e-mail.”
It was. Mr Viniar went on to clarify that “it’s very unfortunate for anyone to have said that in any form” but, in April, when US lawmakers heard testimony from executives at Goldman Sachs in long hearings about the financial crisis, e-mail played a starring role. Congressional leaders grilled various representatives from the bank about electronic communication among bankers, which lawmakers thought might indicate that they knowingly sold lousy investments to their clients. In hindsight, these sometimes snarky and sarcastic missives from the height of the credit bubble looked embarrassing at best and potentially incriminating at worst.
Goldman last week settled a fraud lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that it misled investors in a mortgage-based security. This was another case in which e-mail featured prominently, with Goldman banker Fabrice Tourre referring to himself in messages as “fabulous Fab” and to collateralised debt obligations as “monstrosities”.
Goldman and its bankers are not the first to stumble with e-mail correspondence and are unlikely to be the last. Over the past decade, as e-mail has become ubiquitous and devices such as the BlackBerry have often turned e-mail into the main source of communication between busy executives, there have been a number of high-profile mishaps. They have ranged from potentially damning comments to embarrassing misfires and point to the need for executives and companies to develop a more careful approach towards managing e-mail.
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Source: ft.com
By: Nicole Bullock and Telis Demos
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