Ex-Citigroup officials Rubin, Prince to testify on financial crisis

Former Treasury Secretary and Citigroup executive Robert Rubin is expected to be grilled Thursday by an independent panel investigating the financial crisis.

Rubin, a former chairman at Citigroup, will testify alongside fellow former Citigroup Chairman and CEO Charles Prince before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, an independent, bipartisan group looking into the reasons for the financial crisis. The panel must provide a report to Congress and the president by Dec. 15 on the causes of the financial crisis.

While Prince and Rubin were executives at Citi, the bank lost more money than another other company in history, requiring $45 billion in federal money in 2008 to salvage the institution after the mortgage market collapsed and credit froze.


Questioners on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission are likely to probe the former Citibank officials about the pervasive attitude on Wall Street that allowed for millions in bonuses while companies lost billions.
Rubin and others on the board paid Prince a $12.5 million bonus when he left in 2007 even though Citigroup's value had dropped by $64 billion during his tenure.


They also could ask why Citigroup took on so many bad subprime loans on its books and whether they had any clear warnings that they were in highly risky territory.


Rubin and Prince will testify one day after former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who defended his tenure at the Fed on Wednesday.
As Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration, Rubin also pushed for deregulation of the financial sector, which has come under increasing criticism since the financial meltdown.

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