On the evidence though, you wouldn’t want to go art hunting with Mr Mead. He seems unable to distinguish a Picasso from a Damien Hirst. Forging signatures on cheques and transfer instructions is not exactly at the high end of financial fraud. If it were, the trial would almost certainly have collapsed. A large number of sophisticated fraud cases collapse because the jury cannot understand the complexity of the money flows and structures involved.
Not the case in the Goldman Sachs’ affair, in which the jury understood the process all too easily. It’s embarrassing, of course, being a financial high flier and being fleeced by a PA with a background in car sales. But when you look closer it’s easy to understand why.
The serious point that may be missed is that bankers at the top of their profession, given the demands placed upon them, need serious and reliable help in sorting out the rest of their lives – though they may be too shy to admit it. This need is recognised for company CEOs and top politicians so why not for bankers? It should be.
If Goldman Sachs is still teaching its secretaries, as was claimed at the trial, that their work only concerns official company business, it is not facing up to reality.
Investment banks need to understand the inevitable blurring of personal/professional lives that occurs among their top bankers, advise new secretaries how to deal with it and, most importantly, make sure that their integrity matches the responsibilities they are being given. Otherwise another vexed investment banker will shortly be referring to “the Matisse of fraudsters” at a forthcoming trial.
