Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

1. GAO says Federal Reserve should improve transparency

   By Nancy Watzman Oct 19, 2011 11:57 a.m.

   In the wake of the financial crisis, when members of Congress and others raised questions about conflicts of interest within the Federal Reserve banking system and individual banks, the Federal Reserve should take concrete steps to become more transparent, reports the General Accountability Office (GAO) in a report issued today.

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2. With Fed foreign currency swaps on the rise, mystery remains which foreign banks benefit

   By Nancy Watzman Oct 19, 2011 10:52 a.m.

   Since the end of August, the European Central Bank has been drawing on the foreign currency swap line established by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, recently securing $1.8 billion to lend to European banks, most of it over a three-month time period. But the ECB does not name which banks or institutions are receiving these dollars. Who gets the money is anybody's guess.

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3. Federal Reserve forced to report which banks benefit from loan programs

   By Nancy Watzman Oct 18, 2011 12:35 p.m.

   It took an act of Congress and a major lawsuit, but the details of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board's emergency loan programs and discount window lending--which peaked at more than a trillion dollars for the nation's biggest banks and other institutions during the recent financial meltdown--finally came into the light.

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4. Bank fees are up, but disclosure is sorely lacking

   By Nancy Watzman Sep 28, 2011 9:29 a.m.

   As banks continue to raise their fees for consumer accounts, and free checking appears to be going the way of the dodo, banks have a decidedly spotty record on clearly disclosing these fees to their customers--even though they are required to do so by law.

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5. Law professors push for corporations to disclose political spending

   By Nancy Watzman Sep 21, 2011 1:54 p.m.

   With corporate political spending--some of it secret--expected to explode in the 2012 election cycle, a group of law professors is petitioning the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make a formal policy requiring corporations to disclose such expenditures to shareholders and the public.

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6. Super Committee members' past votes clue to future action

   By Tessa Muggeridge, Katy Schultz, and Nancy Watzman Sep 8, 2011 8:41 a.m.

   As the Joint Select Committee on Debt Reduction charged with finding $1.5 trillion in savings in the federal budget begins its work in earnest, a look at past votes on money matters by the lawmakers that are part of this powerful group provides clues to how they’ll approach their task.

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7. Dodd-Frank: How investment banks contributed to the financial crisis

   By Nancy Watzman Jul 29, 2011 10:35 a.m.

   The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in response to the financial crisis of 2008, added new regulations and new regulators for some—but not all—of the institutions whose actions led to the crisis. Over the next several days, we’ll be taking a look at each of the major groups of contributors to the economic crisis, who the major players were, what political influence they brought to bear on Congress and regulators, how Dodd-Frank intends to regulate them, and, using our new Dodd-Frank Meeting Logs tool, what rules these groups are trying to influence as agencies implement the legislation.

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8. Goldman Sachs, financial firms flood agencies to influence financial law, new Dodd-Frank tracker shows

   By Nancy Watzman Jul 18, 2011 11:32 a.m.

   Investment bank Goldman Sachs, one of the major players in the crisis that led to the economic meltdown of 2008, has had more meetings with government officials about the implementation of the law intended to reform the financial system than any other company or organization, an analysis of nearly a year’s worth of financial agency meeting logs shows.

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9. One out of ten investment advisers disciplined

   By Nancy Watzman Jun 29, 2011 12:19 p.m.

   Throughout his career as a broker-dealer, Anthony Gerard Manaia has been fired twice. He’s been the subject of 18 complaints by disgruntled investors, most of whom accused him of putting their money in risky investments without their knowledge.  He’s currently under investigation for his role in a scandal around offerings by a medical financing company that a federal agency has accused of misappropriating investor funds.

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10. Good investor data are hard to find

    By Nancy Watzman Jun 29, 2011 12:18 p.m.

    In a recent report to Congress, mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law, the SEC maintained that "because selecting a broker-dealer or investment adviser is one of the most important decisions that investors face, information to help them make this choice should be easy to find, easy to use, and easy to understand."

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11. Private hedge funds win registration delay

    By Nancy Watzman Jun 22, 2011 1:08 p.m.

    Some private hedge funds won't have to register with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) until next year, winning a delay in a requirement set out in the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law, reports the Wall Street Journal.

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12. Investment adviser contributions remain secret

    By Nancy Watzman Jun 16, 2011 7:50 a.m.

    Starting in March 2011, investment advisers who have government clients must keep records of campaign contributions made to elected officials or candidates. But these records are kept secret--buried in internal files, out of the public eye, and available for perusal only by certain government officials.

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13. Bankers critical of Dodd-Frank meet with Geithner

    By Nancy Watzman Jun 2, 2011 8:52 a.m.

    The same day Jamie Dimon, chief executive and president of JPMorgan Chase & Company, publicly bashed the new Dodd-Frank financial law he and the company's top lobbyist, Peter Scher, had a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

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14. Powerful financial council could deny or delay public information

    By Nancy Watzman May 31, 2011 1:43 p.m.

    A newly created powerful federal financial council will have broad latitude to deny or delay Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests if it adopts proposed rules, charges a financial watchdog group.

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Investigations by Sunlight Foundation reporter Nancy Watzman