Peter Siverer JP Morgan Whistleblower

"When Wall Street Watchdogs Hunt Whistle-Blowers

By William Cohan
August 19, 2012 6:33 PM EDT

You’ve probably never heard of Peter Sivere, a former compliance officer at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)

Yet his distressing story shows -- on a personal level -- that for all the tough talk about better enforcement of financial wrongdoing, just how tightly government regulators are aligned with the big Wall Street banks they are supposed to keep an eye on.

In January 1998, Sivere joined JPMorgan as a surveillance analyst in the compliance department of the fixed-income group. In December 1999, Sivere was promoted to vice president and then again to be the “team leader” of electronic-communications compliance. On Sept. 26, 2003, Sivere received his annual review and a rating of 9.63, or “great,” according to the bank’s evaluation scale.

“I consider Peter to be a brilliant surveillance analyst,” one of his colleagues wrote. “Peter is highly motivated and diligent individual with an exceptional work ethic.”

Despite that review and the promotions, things had actually started going off the rails, careerwise, for Sivere earlier that month, when then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed a complaint against Canary Capital Partners LLC, a (now defunct) New Jersey hedge fund and a big client of JPMorgan. The suit held that Canary had engaged in “late trading” of mutual funds -- that is, it was allowed to buy shares of mutual funds at the day’s final price even though the market had closed. Canary’s late trading was akin to getting tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal today.

The next day, the Securities and Exchange Commission started its own investigation into late trading and asked for documents and e-mails from JPMorgan. Sivere was put in charge of a group of four internal lawyers searching for documents to provide the SEC. Several weeks later, the bank’s litigation department removed the four lawyers from the project, allegedly because they failed to find all the “responsive e-mails” called for in the SEC’s subpoena.

Sivere contests that claim. “I observed that the attorneys had discovered a number of E-mails” that JPMorgan’s litigation department “had not identified,” he wrote in an affidavit. A few weeks later, a new set of four lawyers was hired -- also to be supervised by Sivere -- to resume the document production for the SEC’s investigation.

According to court documents and an investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, on Nov. 18 one of the new lawyers, Sarah Kelleher, found an e-mail that showed that JPMorgan had provided a $105 million line of credit to Canary Capital that Canary used to facilitate its late trading in mutual funds. Sivere forwarded the e-mail to three of the leaders of the compliance department. The next day Sivere and the second set of lawyers were removed from their roles finding documents to send to the SEC.

They were replaced by a team from the law firm Davis, Polk & Wardwell. This was odd, as Davis, Polk had an apparent conflict related to its providing legal advice in setting up financing vehicles to trade mutual funds for JPMorgan clients.

Sivere’s wife gave birth to the couple’s first child on Jan. 21, 2004, and because of complications with her health, Sivere took medical leave between March 2 and April 21. On April 23, Sivere had a conversation with his supervisors who told him they were “not happy” with his performance.

Throughout May 2004, as news accounts started appearing about the late-trading scandal involving Canary, Sivere became increasingly concerned that JPMorgan was not cooperating fully with the SEC’s investigation. He told his immediate boss about his growing concerns. Sivere contacted the firm’s compliance department to find out what e- mails had been turned over to the SEC, but did not receive a reply.

On June 1, Sivere was given the choice of either leaving the firm immediately as a result of his “insubordination” or continuing to work at the firm under a “final written warning” agreement. On June 4, Sivere told a compliance officer at the bank that he thought he was being retaliated against for questioning the firm’s cooperation with the SEC investigation. JPMorgan opened an internal investigation, and placed Sivere on paid leave, with no access to his computer, pending its outcome.

On June 13, Sivere contacted an SEC lawyer, George Demos, by e-mail, seeking to become a whistle-blower. Sivere asked if he would be able to collect whatever “bounty” the law permitted for trying to do the right thing. (He used the indelicate e-mail address Bountyman04@aol.com.)

Demos informed Sivere that no bounty was available; yet Sivere decided to turn over e-mails he had come across in his investigation to the SEC anyway. Sivere believed the e-mails showed JPMorgan had violated securities laws. (Sivere also later filed a complaint with OSHA, claiming that he had been discriminated against for turning over e-mails to the SEC.)

Not surprisingly, Sivere was demoted from team leader when he returned to work on July 19. But he continued to monitor e- mails about the SEC’s investigation into late trading. In early October, he accessed more e-mails from JPMorgan executives relating to the firm’s relationship with Canary, including one dated Oct. 4, from Jamie Dimon, now the chairman and chief executive officer. Dimon’s missive asked Joan Guggenheimer, co- general counsel, to tell him the “exact timing” of the firm’s involvement with Canary and the loans that were made to help Canary finance its late trading of mutual funds.

On Oct. 7, JPMorgan fired Sivere for inappropriate use of the firm’s e-mail. OSHA eventually determined that JPMorgan had retaliated against Sivere and ordered him reinstated. Instead, Sivere and the bank settled for $350,000. After an arbitration hearing, JPMorgan was ordered to change the description of Sivere’s firing on his U-5 form from “mutual consent” and “for accessing e-mails without authorization” to “a disagreement regarding the scope of his authority.” Sivere struggled to find work, but is now with Barclays Plc in New York. “Today, I believe my past experience and desire to do the right thing should be an asset,” he told me recently. “Wall Street executives talk about ’tone at the top’ and ’culture’ but, unfortunately, the people who monitor those things are at risk more than most people realize.” (As I have said before, I too worked for JPMorgan and unsuccessfully took it to arbitration over my firing in 2004.)

That would be the end of the horrific story, except that as part of the OSHA investigation, Sivere discovered in May 2005 that Demos, the SEC lawyer, had informed JPMorgan’s lawyers that Sivere had asked the SEC for a bounty as a whistle-blower. Demos also gave permission and “actually encouraged” that this bit of information be used in the lawsuit between JPMorgan and Sivere.

This was, of course, blatantly in violation of SEC rules. The SEC’s inspector general investigated the matter and corroborated that Demos had ratted out Sivere, but the agency took no disciplinary action against Demos.

As usual, truth is stranger than fiction. The epilogue to the story is that early this year, Demos announced he was seeking the Republican nomination for a seat in the U.S. House from an eastern Long Island district. His slogan: “Fighting for Freedom.” In May, Demos gave up his fight, claiming that he wanted to spend more time with his fiancee.

With a little luck, the SEC will adopt Demos’s unused slogan in what little effort it makes these days to crack down on Wall Street wrongdoing.

(William D. Cohan , the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World,” is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was formerly an investment banker at Lazard Freres, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this article: William D. Cohan at wdcohan@yahoo.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this article: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net."

Source

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-19/when-wall-street-watchdogs-hunt-whistle-blowers?category=

Not Much Bounty for SEC Whistleblower Program - SEC's Enforcement Division - Peter Sivere - Whistleblowers Are Ignored

"" For more than 20 years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has had a program in place to reward whistleblowers who provide the agency with information about insider trading. But a new audit by the SEC Office of Inspector General (OIG) reveals that the program has almost never been used, is barely recognized inside or outside the SEC, and has fundamental design flaws.

It turns out the SEC has received very few applications in the past two decades for bounties under the program -- and only five people have actually received payments since the program first began:

Design Flaws in the Bounty Program

The OIG also found that the program suffers from the following deficiencies: it's poorly recognized by the public and even within the SEC; the criteria for judging bounty applications is overly vague; the SEC does not have good internal policies to guide staff in reviewing bounty applications; the SEC rarely provides whistleblowers with status reports on their applications (a problem we've also heard about at other IG offices); once the applications are passed on, there are no systems in place to ensure that they are processed in an adequate and timely fashion; and the documentation for bounty referrals is often incomplete.

Many Whistleblowers Are Ignored or Even Subjected to Retaliation

POGO previously reported on anecdotal evidence of the problems described by the SEC OIG.

Writing for Politics Daily, we described how one whistleblower was retaliated against after inquiring whether he would be eligible to receive a bounty payment under the SEC's program. Peter Sivere, who at the time was working as a compliance officer at JPMorgan, first approached the SEC with evidence showing that his employer had failed to disclose documents sought in a wide-ranging SEC probe into a practice known as market timing. He was told that he didn't qualify for a bounty payment, but he provided the information anyway.

But instead of protecting Peter Sivere, the SEC enforcement attorney investigating the matter told JPMorgan's counsel about Peter Sivere's initial inquiry about a cash payment. JPMorgan's counsel then used this information to disparage Peter Sivere's whistleblower credentials at a proceeding before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in which Peter Sivere had contended that JPMorgan retaliated against him after he went to the SEC.

A subsequent investigation by the SEC OIG found that the enforcement attorney, George Demos , had violated agency rules by disclosing non-public information in an ongoing investigation, and recommended that disciplinary action be taken. George Demos left the SEC shortly thereafter and is now running for Congress.

OIG's Recommendations

To help correct the many deficiencies in the whistleblower bounty program, the OIG's latest audit recommended that the SEC's Enforcement Division develop a communications plan to publicize its existence; post the application on its website with clear instructions for the whistleblower; establish better policies to follow up with the whistleblower once the complaint is received; develop specific criteria for recommending bounty awards; improve its internal controls for tracking tips and complaints; require that a bounty file with minimum documentation be created for each application; and incorporate best practices from comparable programs run by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Services (IRS).

Congressional Reforms and Problems with Other Bounty Programs

In the meantime, Congress is also considering legislation to improve the SEC's whistleblower bounty program. The financial regulatory overhaul bill passed by the House last fall included a provision to authorize the SEC to award bounty payments tied to any judicial or administrative action brought by the SEC (i.e., not just insider trading cases) that results in monetary sanctions of over $1 million.

The provision also enables the whistleblower to receive up to 30 percent of the amount recovered (the current limit is 10 percent).

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd's (D-CT) bill would go even further, ensuring that the whistleblower receives no less than 10 percent of the monetary sanctions, and allowing the whistleblower to appeal any aspect of the SEC's decision, including whether, to whom, and in what amount to make the award.

We applaud these legislative fixes and hope that the final bill reflects the stronger language proposed by the Senate. However, the SEC should also learn from the shortcomings in comparable whistleblower reward programs run by other agencies.

While the False Claims Act has resulted in over $20 billion in recoveries since 1986, the IRS's program to reward whistleblowers who spot tax problems in their workplace shares some of the same problems uncovered by the SEC OIG.

The IRS program, which was established under the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, enables whistleblowers to receive between 15 and 30 percent of the collected proceeds.

However, a recent audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that the IRS's Whistleblower Office does not have a good system in place to manage and track cases, and that no awards have actually been paid out under the new program, in part because the claims can take over a decade to process.

One well-known whistleblower who's still waiting to hear whether he will receive an award is former UBS employee Brad Birkenfeld, who was sentenced to 40 months in prison after he attempted to inform the IRS and DOJ about his role in soliciting wealthy Americans to evade taxes through services provided by the Swiss bank.

Although his ordeal isn't necessarily a reflection on the IRS program, it does highlight the dangers often faced by individuals who blow the whistle on corporate wrongdoing.

In any event, the SEC could use all the help it can get when it comes to handling whistleblower complaints, and we hope that the OIG's recommendations and Congress's legislation will finally enable the SEC to give whistleblowers the protection and recognition they deserve.

-- Michael Smallberg  ""Sourcehttp://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2010/04/if-the-sec-has-a-whistleblower-program-but-nobody-ever-uses-it-does-it-really-exist.html

George Demos says he has has dedicated his entire career to fighting corporate fraud and crime.

I just don't get it.. wasn't George Demos at the SEC in 2004 when Peter Sivere was exposed - is George Demos Part of the Culture of Corruption, part of what STOPS the SEC from actually holding these corporations REALLY accountable.. and now George Demos wants New York to think he is fit for Congress and the right man to represent the citizens... ???

How can George Demos really say he Fights Corporate Fraud when he seems to me to Promote and Stand with those who committ this fraud...

George Demos Website Says this ... Mumbo Jumbo..
" George Demos  on behalf of the American people. The grandson of immigrants who sailed past the Statue of Liberty on their journey from Greece to freedom and opportunity, George is committed to protecting our freedoms and expanding our opportunities. George's mother, a former public school teacher, instilled in him at an early age the importance of education while George's father, an attorney in private practice, gave him the gift of a strong work ethic and taught by example the importance of giving back to the community.

Fighting Corporate Fraud.
George served as a United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement attorney from 2002 through 2009 where he specialized in prosecuting corporate and white collar fraud. George handled some of the SEC's most significant investigations including the case against American International Group (AIG) for its phony accounting practices that resulted in the largest fine in history. George also served on the 2009 Bernard Madoff prosecution team responsible for bringing to justice the perpetrators of the largest financial fraud in American history.

But most of the time, George worked tirelessly on the cases that never made the headlines; the cases where he sat in the homes of innocent victims who had lost everything and tried to right those wrongs, including on a recent case where a fraudster targeted New York Catholic investors.

George received his BA from Columbia University where he majored in political science and his law degree from Fordham Law School where he served on the Environmental Law Journal. While in law school, George worked at the Riverhead office of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office where he helped ensure dangerous criminals remained off of our streets.

A lifelong member of the Shelter Island community, George lives in Brookhaven, New York. He is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church in Southampton, and volunteers his time in philanthropic activities.""

Source
http://www.georgedemosforcongress.com/refresh/templates/meet_george.php?id=5

Posted here by Investigative Blogger
Crystal L. Cox

Peter Z. Sivere v. JP Morgan Chase - Department of Labor - OSHA - SEC - Canary Capital - Davis Polk - JPM Chase

August 2005 Archives

Inside the JP Morgan, Peter Sivere Whistleblower Case

"Civil Action to Protect Against Retaliation in Fraud Cases"

Lisa M. Wells - JPM Chase

Sarbanes - Oxley

Jamie Dimon

Davis Polk Investigations

When Loans were made and What We did about it...

JP Morgan provided a $150 Milloin Line of Credit to a Canary Entity Structured for Canary a series of short equity basket swaps that allowed Canary to hedge its long position in third party mutual funds.

Plaintiffs allege that JPM has liability as financier of some Canary Market timeing and late trading. ... Davis Polk seems to have claimed, in their investigation that JPM had no knowledge of late trading or improper timing...

Heritage Bank One ..

What are the Conflicts of Interest, Attorneys Protecting Each Other.. Isn't Davis Polk connected to Proskauer Rose Somehow??

Canary Capital Litigation

Investment Banking Exposure

TS&S / Investment Management Exposure

Click Here for Full Document

Howard L. Shapiro - Counsel to the Inspector General. Dan Petrole - Peter Sivere Whistleblower Smackdown. Blatant Disregard of Fraud.

SEC Investigators - OSHA Investigators - SEC OIG Report of Investigation - Industry Whistleblower - SEC Fraud and Failing the Public.

Howard L. Shapiro - Counsel to the Inspector General
Deputy Inspector General, Dan Petrole

Below is What Seems to Me Like a Whistleblower Smackdown, as the SEC Fails Over and Over to Protect Whistleblower, Consumers, Shareholders and Faild to Investigate Fraud. Is there No Accountability, Transparency or Rights on any Level?

***********

In a message dated 2/17/2010 7:55:05 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, shapiro.howard@oig.dol.gov writes:

Mr. Sivere:

The Deputy Inspector General, Dan Petrole, has asked me to respond to your recent e-mail to him, in which you state:

In light of the new public interest in this matter I would like for you to re-open this investigation. Please see the attached documentation from Mr. Heddell (signed by you on his behalf) and his reasoning for not re-opening this investigation.

Specifically, Mr. Heddell stated "our review of the SEC OIG Report of Investigation does not provide sufficient basis to revisit this determination."

Why didn't OSHA ever produce a final determination in this investigation? Did OSHA ever interview George Demos or speak directly with the SEC in regard to his allegations of me?

Upon review of the linked web pages (in your e-mail), it appears that the new public interest in this matter primarily relates to actions taken (or not taken) within the SEC, and does not provide a sufficient basis or justification for the DOL OIG to re-visit its previous determination regarding the opening of an investigation with respect to actions taken by OSHA employees.

Howard L. Shapiro
Counsel to the Inspector General "

************

From: PSivere@aol.com [mailto:PSivere@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 6:10 AM
To: Shapiro, Howard - OIG
Cc: Petrole, Daniel - OIG
Subject: Re: Request to OIG

Dear Mr. Shapiro,

Nothing in the attached Memorandum of Understating between the SEC and DOL, entered into July 29, 2008 contain any restrictions on the DOL.

Has Mr. Petrole made any attempt to discuss this matter with the SEC OIG as outlined in the MOU? The fact that my confidential information was leaked during an OSHA investigation and the DOL OIG has no interest in investigating why OSHA investigators did not or will not investigate the leak is troubling.

At a minimum the OSHA investigators should have contacted the SEC investigators to compare "facts." The SEC OIG was concerned enough to investigate their own, why won't the DOL OIG do the same? What is the downside for DOL to produce a similar report as the SEC OIG did?

Thank You,
Peter ""

************

Message from Dan Petrole to Howard L. Shapiro

"In a message dated 3/4/2010 3:16:53 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
Petrole.Daniel@oig.dol.gov writes:

Howard,

I assume that you are monitoring these e-mails. I also realize that Mr. Sivere agreed to a settlement regarding his issue. Just want to make sure you are comfortable that nothing comes back to bite us.

Dan"

************

"From: PSivere@aol.comTo: Petrole.Daniel@oig.dol.govCC: shapiro.howard@oig.dol.govSent: 3/11/2010 5:41:03 A.M. Eastern Standard TimeSubj: Re: Request to OIG

Mr. Petrole,

Leaving the settlement aside for a moment. Congress charges your agency with protecting the workers of this country. Specifically, it charges you to ensure that certain programs are administered and carried out without interference or political agendas.

Sadly, your comment below illustrates why the American people are fed up. You are in Washington to serve the people of this country. It's a sad state of affairs when the agency charged with protecting the workers of this country believe we are better protected when civil servants, like yourself, put politics before your actual mandate.

This is not a legal issue. This is a systematic breakdown of your agency and all you focus on is CYA. I purposely let your e-mail sit in my in box for the past week with the hopes of establishing some dialogue with you and your agency. Sadly, it did not happen.

Thank You,
Peter Sivere "

Posted here by
Investigative Blogger

Crystal@CrystalCox.com

At SEC, the system can be deaf to whistleblowing - Is the SEC Listening to WHAT will Cost Shareholder Billions?

"" By Zachary A. Goldfarb

Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 21, 2010
Eric Kolchinsky was an executive at Moody's, the credit rating company, when he called a top official at the Securities and Exchange Commission in September to warn that his firm might be violating securities law.

He reported that Moody's was blessing mortgage-backed investments that it knew were dangerous, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The SEC official assured Kolchinsky that someone from the agency would call him back shortly.
But the call never came, Kolchinsky later told congressional investigators who were examining how the credit rating industry's failures contributed to the financial crisis. He had gone to Congress after losing patience with the SEC.

Kolchinsky is one in a series of whistleblowers who in recent years tried to tip off the SEC to potential wrongdoing, only to be ignored, misunderstood or left to wonder whether they were being listened to. The SEC has no system in place to guide how officials should handle tips and complaints from outsiders, making it difficult for investigators to take advantage of an invaluable source of information.

This failure helped to continue two of the most celebrated frauds of the last decade for several years, potentially costing unwitting investors millions of dollars. Countless others may have been left vulnerable to shysters because of warnings that went unheeded.

Since SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro took office last year, she has said that fixing the holes in the process for handling tips and complaints has been a top priority. But improving the way hundreds of thousands of tips are analyzed and pursued has proven difficult.

The SEC's enforcement division got back in touch with Kolchinsky about his allegations only after he told the story publicly to a congressional committee last fall, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The SEC said it responded to Kolchinsky's concerns but declined to provide details or to say how fast it did so. Moody's said it examined his allegations and found nothing improper.
The SEC has a haphazard, decentralized system for analyzing outsider information. Tips arrive by phone, mail and e-mail to officials throughout the agency -- investor education to enforcement divisions.

A study commissioned by the SEC last year and conducted by Mitre, a nonprofit group that does research for the federal government, found that the SEC lacks technology to analyze tips and complaints, as well as cohesive policies for what officials should do when they get information.
Whistleblower complaints are one of the main ways that investigators should be tipped to wrongdoing, SEC officials say, along with inconsistencies in financial filings and alerts from financial exchanges about suspicious trading patterns. But the SEC lags behind some other federal agencies in handling tips.

The Internal Revenue Service, for instance, pays reward money to whistleblowers who provide credible information about tax fraud. The Federal Trade Commission has set up a call center for tips and complaints.

On top of structural problems at the SEC, agency officials individually made mistakes in handling several recent cases, sometimes violating agency rules.

Members of Schapiro's management team said they recognized problems with the system for handling whistleblowers shortly after taking over.

"There was no uniformity to it. Every division and office had its own system of recording, tracking or handling tips and complaints. That system was pretty rudimentary," said Steve Cohen, the official tasked by Schapiro to overhaul the agency's tips, complaints and whistleblower program. "We're already working to acquire and deploy technology that centralizes all of the agency's tips and complaints so they can be sorted, reviewed, analyzed and tracked." "

Full Article and Source
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012005125.html

Lehman Brothers Searching "Peter Sivere and Compliance Reporter March"

Why?
email Me at
Crystal@CrystalCox.com

The SEC Pimped Peter Sivere

"" Add Peter Sivere to the list of people totally screwed by the Wall Street-Washington incest.

The incestuous nature of the Wall Street-Washington relationship runs across many segments of our financial landscape. That said, the corrosive nature of this incest is most egregious within those institutions charged with protecting investors, that is the SEC and FINRA.

The SEC and FINRA failed the Madoff investors, the Stanford investors, and ultimately the country as a whole. I firmly believe the financial regulatory system failed to perform because it was in bed with the industry and served at its behest. To what extent are the regulators still in bed with the industry? That question is not rhetorical? FINRA, Wall Street’s self-regulator, is funded by the industry. How has that inherent conflict worked? Not very well.

While the SEC and FINRA might promote that they are working to address areas where they have failed investors in the past, who within these institutions has ever been held accountable for their massive failures? To this end, let’s address how the SEC blew the cover of Peter Sivere, then of JP Morgan.

Who is Peter Sivere? Peter Sivere worked within the compliance division of JP Morgan. He unearthed and reported evidence of potential improprieties within JP Morgan to the SEC. In the process of this ‘whistleblower’ action, Sivere assumed he would have been protected by the SEC. Was he? Let’s read a report from The Washington Post, At SEC, System Can Be Deaf to Whistleblowing:

Sivere worked in the compliance office of New York investment bank J.P. Morgan Chase. As part of a team helping the bank furnish documents related to a 2004 SEC probe into suspected illegal trading, he found an e-mail that he thought was incriminating. According to a subsequent report by the SEC inspector general, the e-mail said J.P. Morgan was knowingly providing hundreds of millions of dollars in credit to a firm “in the business of day trading mutual funds” — which is illegal.

Sivere asked his superiors if this e-mail had been turned over to the SEC but did not get an answer. Instead, he was taken off the SEC project, according to the inspector general report. Sivere accessed his superiors’ e-mail accounts to retrieve relevant e-mails, then contacted the SEC. He told the agency that he had relevant documents and asked whether he could receive a reward. He was told he was not eligible, but he turned over the documents anyway.

Sivere informed J.P. Morgan that he had contacted the SEC. The company fired him, partly on the grounds that he had “sought payment from the SEC to provide documents and information to them outside of the normal scope of their investigation,” according to a letter company lawyers wrote defending his dismissal. J.P. Morgan declined to comment for this article.

Sivere was shocked to learn that J.P. Morgan knew he had inquired about a bounty. He had been promised that his discussions with the SEC were confidential.

An SEC internal probe found that an investigator working on the case disclosed Sivere’s information to J.P. Morgan’s lawyers, violating the agency’s confidentiality rules. The inspector general recommended that the SEC official who made the disclosure be referred for disciplinary action. None was taken, according to agency documents.

Did Sivere deserve to get fired? That is not the point. He was given up by the SEC. That is the point.

What happens when people are not held to account? Bad business practices continue, other people fail to provide information, and our country suffers. Mary Schapiro may believe she and these institutions (SEC and FINRA) can move forward. The problem, though, is that Mary herself is a career regulator, has proven herself incapable of creating real change, and is a product of the incest if not truly a participant.

As for Peter Sivere, who is looking out for him and others like him?

Look who commented in an October 2008 Shifting Careers column in The New York Times,

October 12, 2008
9:18 am

How about in cases where doing you job gets you fired?

— peter sivere

High five to a loyal Sense on Cents supporter for bringing this story to my attention.

LD ""

Source
http://www.senseoncents.com/2010/01/the-sec-pimped-peter-sivere/

The SEC Continues to this Day to IGNORE tips that WILL Lead to Billions Lost by Investors such as the Iviewit Stolen Patent and the Investors in... and Players Named in the Eliot Bernstein, Iviewit Complaint: Corporate Management of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL), , Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Silicon Graphics, Inc. (delisted NYSE: SGI) & successor Silicon Graphics International (NASDAQ: SGI), Sony Corporation (NYSE/ADR: SNE) , Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT), ....