What did we tell you? The New York state pension fund scandal is starting to look pretty national. New York AG Andrew Cuomo just issued 100 subpoenas to investment firms in his expanding investigation of pay-to-play schemes that defraud public employee retirement funds, and announced the participation of 100 officials in 36 states’ attorney general offices in the probe.
Who are the 14 holdouts? We suspect they’re states that already regulate placement agents or ban them altogether, as New York did last week.
Back in 1999 the SEC proposed comprehensive regulation of pension fund placement agents and other potential conflicts-of-interest, but the stock market was in the headiest stretch of an epic bull market and the proposal died on the vine. Not so much the case these days.