On April 27th I participated via Zoom with the MBA787B class “Resisting Corporate Corruption” at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The class focuses on significant case studies involving ethics and corruption and is taught by my friend Stephen Arbogast, who wrote the class textbook “Resisting Corporate Corruption: Practical Cases in Business Ethics from Enron through SPACs.”
The class discussed the case about my experience at Citigroup “Write to Rubin? – Pressure on Underwriting Standards at Citigroup,” focusing on whether or not there were viable alternatives to my writing my email warning Robert Rubin (who was named Chairman of the Citigroup Board of Directors the following day) about the massive fraud I had discovered involving the underwriting and selling of mortgage loans.
The class reviewed many slides detailing Citigroup’s problematic background and circumstances surrounding my case prepared by Prof Arbogast, with my providing additional information on the content of the slides. The class was very engaged with a robust Q&A session and, at the end of the class, we also talked about my providing evidence of the massive Citigroup fraud to the SEC three months before the bank bailouts and my giving nationally-televised testimony to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. We also discussed the SEC, FCIC, and DOJ subsequently trying to hide much of my damning testimony from the public.
As Professor Arbogast and I told the class, it is imperative that students understand that corporate corruption can take many different forms so that later, in their careers, when the students find themselves around a corrupt corporate culture, they can readily identify it and be able to formulate appropriate actions they can take.
Richard Bowen is widely known as the Citigroup whistleblower. As Business Chief Underwriter for Citigroup during the housing bubble financial crisis meltdown, he repeatedly warned Citi executive management and the board about fraudulent behavior within the organization. The company certified poor mortgages as quality mortgages and sold them to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other investors.
