Maybe Goldman Should Pay The Guys With The Keys To The Room With All Of The Insider Information More

After much whining and grousing, Goldman Sachs finally held its nose and gave its whining and grousing and less-hardworking-than-they-used-to-be junior mistmakers a raise, bringing their compensation more in line with their own fragile senses of self. This largesse, alas, has apparently not filtered down to the compliance department, in spite of the evidence that taking care of those whose job it is to take care of Goldman’s reputation (a job which they don’t always do so well, much to the bank’s extreme detriment) is, on balance, perhaps worth the extra cost.

The SEC sued Jose Luis Casero Sanchez on Wednesday, claiming he used his position in the bank’s Warsaw office to access a control room which stored confidential information on “all pending and potential transactions in which the investment bank was involved and advising clients.” He made at least $471,700 in illegal trading profits, the regulator said.

From September 2020 to May 2021, Casero Sanchez traded on information involving at least 45 Goldman clients, including Equitable Holdings Inc., Cooper Tire and Rubber Co., Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. and Petco Health and Wellness Co., according to the SEC…. The SEC noted that Casero Sanchez’s job was to try to prevent such conduct. He was responsible “for implementing the investment bank’s policies and procedures designed to, among other things, ensure that its employees did not trade on material, nonpublic information,” the agency said.

Nor is this likely to help the matter:

During the pandemic Goldman began offering free breakfast — and lunch — as a perk for essential staff, mostly on the trading side. Last week the canteen reverted to a paid-for service. The policy change caught many employees by surprise.

“They’ve also pulled our free afternoon ice-creams,” lamented one City Insider reader. “Gutted.”

Come on, D-Sol. Take this seriously.

Former Goldman Compliance Analyst Accused of Insider Trading [Bloomberg]
Goldman bankers find end of free food era hard to swallow [FT]

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