The Democratic senator is blaming members of both major political parties, as well as lobbyists, for recent rollbacks.
Senator Elizabeth Warren believes the fallout emanating from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) can be attributed to Washington leaders encouraging a weakening of financial rules.
The bank’s investment decisions were compounded by SVB’s investment of billions of dollars in long-dated U.S. government bonds, including mortgage-backed securities, in a period of routine interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve aimed at curbing inflation.
The four-decade-old California-headquartered bank, previously described as a premier U.S. financial institution for startup tech businesses, grew to be the nation’s 16th-largest bank.
She mentioned Becker’s $9.9 million in compensation last year, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings—including a $1.5 million bonus for boosting bank profitability.
Joseph DePaolo, executive of the New York-headquartered Signature Bank that closed on Sunday, received $8.6 million.
“If we are to deter this kind of risky behavior from happening again, it’s critical that those responsible not be rewarded,” Warren wrote. “S.V.B. and Signature shareholders will be wiped out, but their executives must also be held accountable… We should claw all of that back, along with bonuses for other executives at these banks.
