Spitzer's Legacy
I guess it turns out that compensation deals between sophisticated, consenting adults at private firms are not actually subject to approval by the NY attorney general, no matter how much he grandstands:
A state appeals court on Tuesday dealt a devastating blow to the New
York attorney general's efforts to force ex-New York Stock Exchange
Chairman Richard Grasso to return a portion of his $187.5 million
compensation package.New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's
spokesman issued a statement saying he is not pursuing an appeal in the
case. The Grasso case is "over" "¦ "for all intents and purposes," the
spokesman said.In a 3-1 decision, the New York Supreme Court's
Appellate Division dismissed the two remaining causes of actions
against Mr. Grasso and one against former NYSE director Ken Langone
I wrote much more about this fiasco long ago...
Update: The AG argues that their real concern was about pay practice in non-profits. OK, I am sure there are any number of NGOs and museum presidents where there might be real issues with the sophistication of board members. Go after those folks, then, but there was never, ever any evidence that somehow Dick Grasso pulled the wool over the eyes of financial neophytes on the NYSE Board, babes in the woods such as the CEOs of JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Unfortunately, all these other non-profits tend to be run by folks who are the backbone of the NY Democratic Party. Even in the Grasso suit, Spitzer had to work a bit to avoid naming prominent Democrats as targets. For example, there is a lot of evidence that the person most responsible on the NYSE baord for the structure of Dick Grasso's compensation contract was NYSE board member and former NY State Comptroller Carl McCall, but since he is a powerful Democrat, Spitzer did some slick judo to avoid including him in the suit, which still including other NYSE board members.
