Forty-six hours of secretly recorded meetings between Goldman Sachs and its regulator, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (commonly known as the NY Fed), allegedly reveal a dangerously close  relationship between the two. 

Carmen Segarra, a former NY Fed examiner who is claiming wrongful termination, provided the secretly recorded conversations to the Pro Publica investigative news outlet and National Public Radio.

On the tapes, NY Fed supervisors appear reluctant to demand that Goldman Sachs provide them with information pertaining to a transaction between Goldman and Banco Santander, a Spanish banking group that is one of the world’s largest. Segarra claims that the recordings show that Goldman lacks a proper conflict-of-interest policy, reportsReuters. 

According to USA Today, Segarra has unveiled a culture in which banks and their regulators are too cozy. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., says such relationships threaten the entire economy, as seen in the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Several legislators have called for Congressional hearings into the matter.

Warren said regulators threaten the economy when they show more concern for protecting the big banks from accountability than they do for protecting the American people from Wall Street risk-taking.

reportingproject.net