Cox Blocking
No, I'm not talking about your buddy moving in on the girl you're trying to get with at the pub fellas; I'm talking about blocking a much more sinister Cox... SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. As this blog's senior corporate ass-kicking correspondent I feel it is my responsibility to let the public know that, as famed plaintiff-side securities lawyer Bill Lerach said of Cox's appointment to head of the SEC, "it is like putting the fox in the chicken coop." (think Bolton as ambassador to the U.N.)
Cox is a former securities defense attorney who represented beacons of veracity like Arthur Andersen and Merrill Lynch. Later he represented the O.C. (stands for Orange Curtain) and was always a pro-big business, defense bar loving, anti-consumer, anti-shareholder, anti-regulation, well, jackass.
One of his contributions to the dark side includes authoring the PSLRA (Private Securities Litigation Reform Act). This act was intended to make it harder for defrauded investors to get their money back from the corporate liars and cheats that took it from them. In part, the Act raises the pleading standard for plaintiffs, basically making them prove up their case before they even get to the document discovery phase. It creates a catch 22: you can't get discovery until you provide a slew of facts proving your claim and you can't very well do that without getting documents from the corporations and fraudsters who committed the wrong you're complaining about.
So why is Cox so "hard on" the above issue? Could it be because Cox himself was investigated for trying to "screw" investors? Ya think! Cox was sued in civil court for corporate securities fraud in 1994, one year before he authored the PSLRA that was eventually passed over President Clinton's veto. (coincidence?)
AS OC Weekly reported, "Before he was elected to Congress in 1988, [Cox] was a corporate lawyer for the failed Irvine securities firm First Pension Corp . . . First Pension collapsed in 1994 after stealing $136 million from 8,500 investors, many of whom were senior citizens who lost their life savings . . . An investor suit accused Cox of knowing of the securities fraud and helping to conceal it."
Finally, dear friends, I find that when truly horrible people sing your praises the odds that you yourself are also horrible are pretty frigg'n good. Let's see who has been "sucking Cox" (and not in a good way):
Contributions to Rep. Christopher Cox by the financial services industry 1993-2004: $988,763
Financial services sector’s rank among Cox’s contributors 1993-2004: 1st
The Securities Industry Association leaders said they saw the Cox nomination as an opportunity for the agency to "reassess burdensome, duplicative, costly" regulations.
Cox has an 87 percent lifetime rating from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meaning he has voted in favor of the chamber's position on legislation the vast majority of the time.
Peter J. Wallison, a former White House counsel who supervised Cox, said Cox "would be driven by data instead of adopting regulations because they seemed like a good idea." [God forbid we do anything that seems like a good idea!!]
And lastly... President Bush likes him... need I say more.
For more fun facts on Cox check out: http://billmon.org/archives/001869.html and this Washington Post Article where I pilfered a bunch of the above quotes http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR2005060200641.html
Cox is a former securities defense attorney who represented beacons of veracity like Arthur Andersen and Merrill Lynch. Later he represented the O.C. (stands for Orange Curtain) and was always a pro-big business, defense bar loving, anti-consumer, anti-shareholder, anti-regulation, well, jackass.
One of his contributions to the dark side includes authoring the PSLRA (Private Securities Litigation Reform Act). This act was intended to make it harder for defrauded investors to get their money back from the corporate liars and cheats that took it from them. In part, the Act raises the pleading standard for plaintiffs, basically making them prove up their case before they even get to the document discovery phase. It creates a catch 22: you can't get discovery until you provide a slew of facts proving your claim and you can't very well do that without getting documents from the corporations and fraudsters who committed the wrong you're complaining about.
So why is Cox so "hard on" the above issue? Could it be because Cox himself was investigated for trying to "screw" investors? Ya think! Cox was sued in civil court for corporate securities fraud in 1994, one year before he authored the PSLRA that was eventually passed over President Clinton's veto. (coincidence?)
AS OC Weekly reported, "Before he was elected to Congress in 1988, [Cox] was a corporate lawyer for the failed Irvine securities firm First Pension Corp . . . First Pension collapsed in 1994 after stealing $136 million from 8,500 investors, many of whom were senior citizens who lost their life savings . . . An investor suit accused Cox of knowing of the securities fraud and helping to conceal it."
Finally, dear friends, I find that when truly horrible people sing your praises the odds that you yourself are also horrible are pretty frigg'n good. Let's see who has been "sucking Cox" (and not in a good way):
Contributions to Rep. Christopher Cox by the financial services industry 1993-2004: $988,763
Financial services sector’s rank among Cox’s contributors 1993-2004: 1st
The Securities Industry Association leaders said they saw the Cox nomination as an opportunity for the agency to "reassess burdensome, duplicative, costly" regulations.
Cox has an 87 percent lifetime rating from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meaning he has voted in favor of the chamber's position on legislation the vast majority of the time.
Peter J. Wallison, a former White House counsel who supervised Cox, said Cox "would be driven by data instead of adopting regulations because they seemed like a good idea." [God forbid we do anything that seems like a good idea!!]
And lastly... President Bush likes him... need I say more.
For more fun facts on Cox check out: http://billmon.org/archives/001869.html and this Washington Post Article where I pilfered a bunch of the above quotes http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR2005060200641.html
posted by Securities Siren at 9:54 PM
1 Comments:
First of all, thank you for brevity. I've heard that Securities Siren often submits 150 page briefs, which overloads the fragile attention deficit disordered readers of Internet Blogs. Or so I'm told. By Fox News. And I believe it. And I shop at WalMart. In my Hummer. Wait, no. None of that is true.
Second comment: If Cox's name were closer to a part of the female anatomy, would he still suck so much? Would he need as much blocking? Is it simply coincidence that Cox needs to be blocked? Studies conducted by International Institute of Rumsfeld Invaders suggest no. Boehner and Dick hang out with Cox in the locker room. Bush also requires a thrust from the White House to Guantanamo. This proves my point, and only someone who comments below this comment can refute it.
And finally, c: All of the above.
Need I say more? I didn't think so.
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