Chris Cox’s Extreme Agenda
Chris Cox’s Extreme Agenda
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, championed by Chris Cox, ended up bad. But if Cox had his way it would have been even worse. From a 2/7/95 AP story:
Attorneys and accountants who complain they’re sued too often for fraud have found a supporter in Rep. Chris Cox, a former securities lawyer whose own work has been criticized in a class-action lawsuit.
Cox, a California Republican, is sponsoring legislation that could drastically curtail such lawsuits against attorneys in the future.
The proposal, a plank in the GOP “Contract With America,” comes as lawyers representing investors stung in a $ 121 million failed investment say they’re considering whether to add him as a defendant in their suit.
The bill being pushed by Cox would prohibit investors injured by securities fraud from suing lawyers and accountants who advocated the deal unless they can prove the lawyers purposely assisted the fraud.
In other words, Cox’s preferred version would have completely protected lawyers and accountants who enable corporate cheats unless plaintiffs could prove they came in with the specific intention to assist fraud. That’s like saying an tire manufacturer is only liable for a car rollover if they produced the tire with the specific intention to roll the car over. Cox wanted almost complete protection for unethical corporate accountants and lawyers.
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
This is where the “personal responsibility” train that most Republicans ride totally de-rails. According to Cox (and now Bush by association), professionals whose opinion were are conditioned to “trust” are not liable for errors.
All this does is give license to lawyers to play even more fast and loose with the rules – in the end, they cannot be held responsible for their actions. Nice, huh?
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:10 pmI wish I knew where we begin, how we proceed to undo all this damage when we regain power in the House and Senate in 2006 and the WH in 2008. Clearly, even the Republicans know that is going to happen. It explains the hurry to enact so much damage in the little time they have left.
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:17 pmIs the SEC chair something that can be filibustered?
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:59 pmThis country is charging ahead toward becoming a total wreck. Every day there is more proposed and real legislation to crush honest people in favor of corrupt politicians and big busines. It is apalling that this continues on and on. The Cox proposal is just another attempt to protect fraudulent companies. To stop this,the Bush administration should be impeached immediately. They are liars and murderers. I’m afraid, however, that it may be to late to save the Uited States of America.
June 2nd, 2005 at 1:05 pm“According to Cox (and now Bush by association), professionals whose opinion were are conditioned to “trustâ€? are not liable for errors.”
Sadly, that is the same position that the law in the US has traditionally taken. The mistaken principle is “privity.” It requires a direct relationship between the person suing for breach of a duty, and the person who supposedly breached the duty. If a corporation hired auditors, and the auditors issues a misleading opinion that caused investors to lose millions, the ocmmon law said the investors could not sue the auditors–since the investors didn’t hire them, the auditors owed the investors “no duty.”
One reason the securities laws were enacted was to put a stop to that stupidity. OBVIOUSLY, the major purpose of having auditors issue a PUBLIC opinion is to induce investment by the public.
Sounds like Chris Cox wants to go back to the common law, which never did work for investors.
June 5th, 2005 at 1:23 pmÆðÃû È¡Ãû
July 16th, 2005 at 9:31 pmhttp://www.pufan.com