Corporate Governance

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said the Greek parliament is investigating the role U.S. banks have played in his country's meltdown.

Thousands of protesters are expected to march on K Street Monday in support of financial regulatory reform legislation.

Oil industry representatives say drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico could be economically threatened if the liability damages cap is raised for offshore spills.

"Precipitous changes to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund could undermine our nation's economic and energy security by making oil and natural gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico uninsurable by all but the largest companies," said Jack Gerard, president and chief executive officer of the American Petroleum Institute, in a release.

Several Democratic lawmakers are pushing to raise the cap from $75 million to $10 billion to cover the costs of containment, cleanup and economic damages incurred by coastal businesses.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who supports increasing the cap amount, objected to a Democratic attempt Thursday to pass the bill quickly, arguing that a $10 billion cap could force small and independent oil operations out of business.

"Congress should endeavor to preserve the trust fund's viability without undermining the oil and natural gas industry's ability to insure capital investments," Gerard said.

Initial economic analysis shows that mid-size operations would have trouble insuring their oil wells and that even if insurance were available, "hypothetical premium increases could raise the total unit costs of exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico by 25 percent, making many fields uneconomical to produce," he said.

Raising the liability damages cap to $5 billion won't be enough, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Thursday after his first attempt to pass legislation to increase the amount oil companies would have top pay for economic damages. 

"We will have a robust figure at the end of the day," he told reporters this afternoon. 

Menendez is co-author -- along with Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) -- of legislation to raise the liability cap from $75 million to $10 billion. Their attempt to gain quick passage of the measure failed today when Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) objected.  

The cost so far is about $450 million including the "cost of spill response, containment, relief well drilling, commitments to the Gulf coast states, settlements and federal costs," British Petroleum said today in a release on its website. 

Several attempts by BP to stop the flow of oil from the ruptured well have failed. 

There appears to be broad support to raise the cap with remaining questions on how much. 

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) questioned the federal fraud case against Goldman Sachs, the investment firm he once ran.

"It looks like a thin legal case to me," Corzine told The New York Times. "You had people identified as suitable customers. Ultimately, it's an issue of whether you wanted to be in synthetic C.D.O.'s."

The Wall Street firm, where Corzine was CEO in the late 1990s, faces federal charges that it failed to disclose necessary information to investors looking at its real estate security project that it had actually bet against.

Corzine, also a former senator, showed some sympathy toward current Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who was recently grilled by senators about his role in the marketing of the security now being scrutinized by the government.

"You had a prosecutor's mentality in terms of how the senators acted," Corzine said of Blankfein's Senate hearing. "The committee has a mentality and a mandate to discover wrongdoing."

Former President Bill Clinton has also questioned the federal case against Goldman, suggesting that consumers looking at the security had access to the needed information.

Regulators told a congressional panel Tuesday they are ruling nothing out as the cause for last week’s market free fall.

Raising or changing the damages liability caps for oil spills will be done soon in the Senate. 

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that "there will be a number of opportunities" to deal with the cap but it won't be included in financial regulatory reform legislation under consideration. 

"There are lots of places we could try to do it," he said. "We have to find an opportune time."

He said it's likely the companies involved in the spill were negligent and "probably grossly negligent," he told reporters today. 

Reid said the federal government is making sure that British Petroleum, "pays for every penny of the damage they caused with that spill." 

Lawmakers shouldn't rush any changes, especially considering the spill still isn't under control, he said. 

Several Senators have called for an increase in the cap from $75 million to $10 billion to ensure that BP pays for containment, clean up and economic damages to coastal businesses. 

More fines for automaker Toyota probably won't happen for at least a couple of months as the Transportation Department slogs through thousands of pages of company documents. 

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, meeting in Japan on Monday with Toyota executives, including President Akio Toyoda, about the recall of 8.5 million vehicles worldwide -- 6 million here -- because of a sticky pedal issues, said he was pleased with the company's efforts but hoped they followed through. 

Toyota was hit with a $16.4 million fine, the highest ever civil penalty levied against an automaker, for failing for four months to report and recall 2.3 million vehicles in the United States for the acceleration issue. Toyota didn't admit wrongdoing but it didn't fight the fine. 

LaHood said it would take some time -- probably a couple of months to investigate the contents of more than half a million documents from Toyota, which could lead to more fines. 

Toyota recently announced additional recalls and still faces hundreds of lawsuits. 

Toyoda testified before Congress in February and LaHood said he invited him back to the United States to talk to lawmakers again and try to smooth out its reputation. 

The bank already faces SEC charges and a criminal probe.

President Obama on Monday nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court and cited her work on the Citizens United v. FEC case as qualifying her for the role. 

"Despite long odds of success, with legal analysts believing the government was unlikely to prevail in this case, Elena still chose it as her very first case to argue before the court," Obama said. "I think that says a great deal not just abut Elena's tenacity but about her commitment to serving the American people. I think it says a great deal about her commitment to protecting our fundamental rights." 

Kagan argued against the position that was ultimately taken by the court, which was corporations should be entitled to certain rights that give them the ability to invest large amounts of money into political campaigns.