The folks at Goldman Sachs can breathe easy again. It seems the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has gotten over the document-dump episode.
The FCIC, the congressionally appointed panel that is writing the definitive history of the financial meltdown, said Friday it will invite top Goldman execs Gary Cohn and David Viniar to testify next week in a probe of the role derivatives played in the crisis.
The hearing will also include two prominent critics of Wall Street’s derivatives antics, led by University of Maryland professor Michael Greenberger and hedge fund manager Michael Masters, and three former AIG executives – including the guy who ran the firm’s infamous financial products unit, Joseph Cassano.
Those should make for interesting discussions. But the headliners will surely be the guys from Goldman, given the venom FCIC chairman Phil Angelides and vice chairman Bill Thomas unleashed on the firm earlier this month. They held a conference call with reporters to complain Goldman was, unlike the other financial firms involved in the probe, stonewalling them.
Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein was the panel’s first witness when it began hearing testimony in January, but Thomas blustered that he wouldn’t be called back to testify a second time because of the way Goldman had handled the commission’s requests.
“We are not interested in providing him with a public forum to sound reasonable when his behavior has not been,” said Thomas.
Fortunately, it seems that providing others at Goldman with such a forum isn’t a problem.