You won't find former AIG chief Martin Sullivan in a very good mood today: His former employer has agreed to Andrew Cuomo's demand that the company suspend $19 million in payouts that Sullivan was supposed to receive. The insurance giant also agreed to withhold more than $600 million in bonus payouts to senior execs. [NYT]
♦ Prosecutors have subpoenaed a dozen Lehman executives, including Dick Fuld, as part of three grand jury probes into the bankruptcy of the investment bank. [NYP]
♦ Warren Buffett has faith: "Buy American. I am." [NYT]
♦ Andrew Cuomo met with AIG's new CEO yesterday, who assured the attorney general the insurance giant would account for excessive executive compensation and will also cancel upcoming conferences. [NYT, Bloomberg]
♦ The Federal Reserve and Treasury are working with Congress on a sweeping bailout program that would represent the biggest intervention in financial markets since the '30s. Asian and European markets soared on the news. [WSJ, Bloomberg, NYT]
♦ Five banks are now looking at Washington Mutual, including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC. [WSJ, Dealbook]
♦ Morgan Stanley's John Mack fought for his life yesterday, lobbying for regulatory changes, twisting arms, and discussing deals with potential partners. China's sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp, is now believed in be in discussions to take a 49 percent of Morgan. [WSJ, Marketwatch]
The Dow soared 410 points today, which is good news and why WSJ.com now has a picture of a trader with a big smile on his face. And Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is now promising to punish the evildoers who are impinging on the ability of 25-year-old Wall Street analysts to pay for $800 bottles of vodka. That's good news, too. The bad: Morgan Stanley may very well still end up in Chinese hands and no one trusts anybody anymore. Even worse: companies are installing treadmills in the office so employees can walk while they work, which may be the scariest thing we've seen all day.
Broadband provider Comcast is pushing back against New York state attorney general Andrew Cuomo's demands to support his anti-child-porn campaign. Comcast and 16 other ISPs signed an agreement with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which maintains a blacklist of suspected illegal porn sites — but for Cuomo's office, that isn't good enough. They insist that in addition to blocking websites, Comcast must fall in line with Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Sprint, AOL and AT&T in shutting customers out of all or part of Usenet, the network of Internet-based discussion groups, and contributing funds to root out more child porn providers. It's not the most practical or even Constitutional approach, but a good move for headlines. Comcast has until Friday to respond to Cuomo's request to sign his code and kick in the cash. (Photo via Bloomberg)
Joining Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint in press-releasing their concerns about child porn online, AOL and and AT&T announced today that they, too, will block their Internet service customers' access to Usenet newsgroups and websites suspected of hosting such illegal content. New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo engineered this arrangement, and California attorney general Jerry Brown and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (pictured here saving the children) are hot for a similar deal in-state.
Going after the student loan industry seems to be too darn frustratingly low-profile for Andrew Cuomo, who's contemplating throwing his hat into New York City's 2009 mayoral election, the Sun says today. Though the Democratic field is already a standing-room-only crowd, ambitious Andy would have a leg up over his rivals in that he has much broader name recognition and a much meatier resume. (Plus, he hasn't been implicated in any elaborate slush-fund scandals, which doesn't hurt.) Previously, the advancement-minded Cuomo had been eyeing the Governor's mansion and Hillary's Senate seat, but David Paterson increasingly looks like he'll seek reelection in 2010 and Hillary decreasingly looks like she stands a shot in hell at being Obama's VP. Of course, this wouldn't be the first time a Cuomo has to tried rule the city: Andy's dad Mario ran a losing primary race against Ed Koch in 1977. We figure the analogue to Koch in this election would be Christine Quinn since she'd be Cuomo's strongest competitor, not because, uh, any other similarities between the two.
By law, only lawmakers are allowed to look at child porn, but that's not enough for New York State's Net-crusading attorney general, Andrew Cuomo. He's demanded that Internet service providers Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and Sprint block access to sites that "disseminate child pornography". This is to be accomplished by preventing users from visiting Usenet newsgroups and a pet list of offending sites drawn up by Cuomo's office. According to News.com, nationwide, Time Warner Cable customers may not be able to visit Usenet at all, and Verizon customers will have the alt.* newsgroups blocked.
The New York attorney general's office ran a "sting" in which agents posed as customers and complained to the companies that they could see child porn. When the service providers ignored them, the agency threatened the companies with fraud. Now, according to the Times, the ISPs are paying over a million dollars to Andrew Cuomo's office and promising to block child porn sites as identified by the office — to all their subscribers across the U.S. As despicable and exploitative as child porn is, blocking it this way is a terrible move.
You know the crazy BODIES exhibit that features plasticized dead bodies, like, playing soccer and blogging and stuff? (We have not seen it, so maybe we're making up the stuff they do.) Those bodies are totally from a shady supplier that buys "unclaimed" bodies from the Chinese Bureau of Police. Which, like, means disappeared people and political prisoners and stuff! Yay! Now New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is forcing the South Street Seaport to tell visitors to the exhibit that the bodies are all executed prisoners who may have been tortured. But it's "don't be too mean to China" week so the exhibit remains open. [Jaunted]
"Crimes committed by sexual predators against children they meet by way of the Internet occur far too often," reads the press release Facebook and a slew of New York politicians including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo put out today. "Far too often" isn't precise language, but it's likely frightening enough rhetoric to drum up votes for the Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act, announced in the release.
The state of New York is launching its own investigation into Intel's anticompetitive behavior, adding to a list including the European Commission and Korea, all egged on by chipmaking rival AMD. It's only natural for New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo to want in on the action. The accusations are similar to other investigations: penalizing computer makers who purchase non-Intel chips, improperly signing exclusive contracts, and cutting off competitors' access to distribution channels. In other words, conducting business a bit too effectively for rivals' tastes. Note that IBM's main chip-assembly plant is based in New York.
