June 08, 2010|By Nathaniel Popper and Tom Petruno, Los Angeles Times Reporting from New York and Los Angeles — Goldman Sachs Group Inc., already under fire for its actions leading up to the financial crisis, came under attack from a federal commission that accused it of refusing to divulge information, including documents detailing its controversial bets on the mortgage market.
Saying it had been stonewalled, the federal commission investigating the financial crisis on Monday took the unusual step of issuing a subpoena to Goldman that demanded information about the investment bank's role before and during the mortgage meltdown and credit crunch.
The panel, formally called the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, said it resorted to the subpoena after Goldman responded to an initial request by sending a massive amount of electronic documents — the equivalent of 2.5 billion pages — without saying where in those documents the answers to the commission's specific questions might lie.
"We did not ask them to pull up a dump truck to our offices to dump a bunch of rubbish," commission Chairman Phil Angelides told reporters during a telephone conference call.
A Goldman spokesman said, "We have been and continue to be committed to providing the FCIC with the information they have requested."
The commission provided a list Monday of the numerous instances since January of this year when Goldman did not respond to requests from the commission, or responded late or with incomplete submissions. It also said it had been stymied in efforts to get interviews with key Goldman executives.
In May, the commission wrote to Goldman and said that commission staff members "did not understand the continual delays and the inability or unwillingness to provide the information requested despite the fact that commission staff had granted extensions for Goldman to respond and had participated in numerous written and verbal communications," according to a document from the commission.
The commission's lashing out at the bank is the latest in a long line of PR blows absorbed by Goldman.
Long the most profitable and prestigious U.S. investment bank, Goldman emerged from the financial crisis stronger than any of its Wall Street rivals, but since then has endured harsh criticism for how it does business.
