September 22nd, 2011, 9:52 pm
QuoteOriginally posted by: rmaxThought provoking post. However as an antithesis:I think we have to be careful of bucketing a whole set of issues that are currently in the industry and trying to find a suitable well paid scapegoat. I think that the issues are that there are a whole gamut of controls that have broken (as mentioned in my prior posts): Trader, Desk Manager, Head of Business, Ops, Op Control, Risk Management, Finance.Those that are long in the tooth enough to remember AIB and John Rusnak will remember that junior people did challenge John, and they were lambasted for "not understanding" his strategy. Similar when Nick Leeson forged a fax to ask for the funding for the roll of his Simex Futures Margin. Yes people should question the motives, and I think that various people should be fired from the firm, but to hold them for criminal misconduct and imply that they were reckless and hence omitting control can only be measured against the man on the Clapham Omnibus - and since the number of "rogue trader" incidents are very high (especially in the Forward side of the business) it seems to me that most people in the same position would have made the same mistake. Don't take this the wrong way - it means that there is some fundamental lack of understanding these departments have in terms of their service to the equity holders - and this should be addressed, but I do not believe that they can be held criminally negligent.In other words: If I kill someone who should get the blame. My parents, my school, my friends or me? I think that it is easy to lay the blame on a whole swathe of people, however if someone is recklessly not obeying the law then the only punishment is that the market should recognise that there is operational risk at the firm, and also in the sector and price accordingly.Very true, I don't want to abdicate responsibility from the individual involved, but if the Desk Head, Ops, risk, Finance et al are not there to prevent fraud, then what are they there for? It seems that we want every function to take part in reducing operational risk, but for only a certain few functions to take responsibility for failures.Personally, I think that to put some 30-something year old guy who manages the control recs on 55k a year in prison would be a bit harsh. He didn't sign up for that role, and was not trained, supported or paid enough to do it properly, let alone identify and fix any existing issues. But if we focused future legislation on operational staff, rather than the CEOs and organisational structure, maybe we'd attract better talent to the risk management side of the business?