Hi Libby,
Yes, it's going to be ugly. Thankfully so, as I see it: someone standing up to the parasitic bureaucrats is long overdue.
I hasten to note...as an ardent watcher of both NYC politics and issues involving securities regulators and the securities industry...that this will be among the first lawsuits launched by Spitzer that hasn't quickly been settled. Grasso has said that he'd donate net proceeds of any recovery he realizes to a charity, which even above his heroic stand, I find exceptionally laudable.
With respect to the Attorney General's contention that the pay awarded to Grasso was 'excessive' (citing New York's For-Profit Corporation Law) I personally believe that he's on thin legal ice. Having taken a bit of time over the weekend to review portions of it, the only relevant clauses I can find hold that compensation should be "reasonable," and moreover should be "commensurate with services provided."
During Grasso's tenure, overall stock listings nearly doubled; most of the 500 non-U.S. companies listed as ADRs/GDRs were added; seat prices tripled in value; technology was overhauled radically; the NYSE held its market share even despite the growth of NASDAQ and the arrival of ECNs, ATS', etc.; and, the Exchange itself earned nearly a billion dollars.
Pretty damned good if you own a seat on the Exchange. And it is to those owners - the de facto shareholders of the NYSE - that the CEO should be accountable where pay and performance are concerned.
Not, as a politically-aspiring socialist would have it, to the State.
LPS5 |
