Sen. Warren Asks Fed, DOJ & SEC for Analysis on Settling without Admission of Guilt

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) posed this question to Ben Bernanke, Eric Holder and Mary Jo White in a May 14 letter: 

Have you conducted any internal research or analysis on trade-offs to the public between settling an enforcement action without admission of guilt and going forward with litigation as necessary to obtain such admission and, if so, can you provide that analysis to my office?

She previously asked the same question to Thomas J. Curry, Comptroller of OCC, at a hearing.  The OCC subsequently stated it did not have any such internal research or analysis.

In her letter Senator Warren stated that "I believe strongly that if a regulator reveals itself to be unwilling to take large financial institutions all the way to trial -- either because it is too timid or because it lacks resources -- the regulator has a lot less leverage in settlement negotiations and will be forced to settle on terms that are much more favorable to the wrongdoer."

Download Warren.LtrtoRegulatorsre2-14-13hrg[1]