Past Lectures
Spring 2008 Lecture
Congressman Barney Frank: Lessons of the Subprime Crisis
Congressman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, delivered an address titled "Lessons of the Subprime Crisis" on Monday, February 11, 2008, Chairman Frank's speech marked the third lecture in the Edward Lane-Reticker Speaker Series.
First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1981, Chairman Frank is a pivotal player in the shaping of national policies affecting the financial services industry and the world's capital markets.
View the video of the event (Video: 58:03)
Dowload the audio from the event (MP3)
Fall 2006 Lecture
The fall lecture, held on November 2, 2006, featured Lewis B. Kaden, Vice Chairman and Chief Administrative Officer of Citigroup. Mr. Kaden's lecture was entitled "Rethinking Corporate Governance and Controls".
Mr. Kaden spoke of the need for developing a culture of compliance in financial services institutions. He also touched on Citigroup's efforts to build this compliance culture through steps it has initiated throughout its corporate structure. His lecture will be published in the next issue of the Annual Review of Banking and Financial Law.
Prior to joining Citigroup in 2005, Mr. Kaden was a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell where his practice areas included corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, and advocacy before appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Before joining Davis Polk in 1984, Mr. Kaden was a Professor of Law at Columbia University from 1976 to 1984 and Director of Columbia's Center for Law and Economic Studies from 1980 to 1984. He has been Adjunct Professor of Law since 1984. In 2005, he was appointed Covington and Burling Distinguished Visitor to the Harvard Law School.
From 1974 to 1976, Mr. Kaden was Counsel to the Governor of New Jersey. He has served as a moderator for the Public Broadcasting System's Media and Society Seminars, including the "Ethics in America" series, which won a Peabody Award.
Mr. Kaden graduated magna cum laude in 1963 from Harvard College and magna cum laude in 1967 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review. During the 1963-1964 academic year he was the John Harvard Scholar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University.
Spring 2006 Lecture
Commissioner Paul S. Atkins opened the Edward Lane-Reticker Speaker Series in March 2006 with a critique of the rule requiring hedge fund advisors to register with the SEC.
Calling the rule “costly and ineffective,” the new rule will not do much to deter fraudulent behavior and will only increase the administrative burden on the SEC, taking away manpower and resources which would be better allocated to overseeing mutual funds in which more people of modest means invest. He said that while the policies seem appropriate, a closer inspection would reveal them to be “rooted rather tenuously in reality.”
The rule, which has been in place since 2004, is currently the subject of a case before the US Appeals Court in Washington. Instead of registration, Mr. Atkins said that he preferred a system of oversight in conjunction with the Treasury Department.
The lecture series was organized in honor of the late Edward Lane-Reticker, the former Associate Director of the Morin Center. Before the Commissioner spoke, a plaque commemorating the occasion was presented to Mrs. Laurie Lane-Reticker.