Goldman’s Pay-to-Play Probe

Goldman Sachs Group will pay $14.4 million to resolve regulatory claims that a former banker made improper campaign contributions to the treasurer of Massachusetts while seeking underwriting business, tghe good folks at Bloomberg told us.

Neil Morrison, who was a vice president in Goldman Sachs’s Boston office, worked for Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill’s unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign from November 2008 to October 2010, sometimes during his office hours, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement yesterday. That constituted in-kind contributions and broke pay- to-play rules, the SEC said.

The settlement, which includes $4.6 million paid to Massachusetts, is the SEC’s first involving noncash contributions and is the latest since the agency began bolstering oversight of the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market in 2010…..

Find out more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-28/goldman-pay-to-play-libor-probe-u-a-e-bank-compliance.html