Is Phil Gramm Involved in UBS Case?

By Ken Silverstein

A reader e-mailed with an interesting question:

Former Senator Phil Gramm is a senior executive with Swiss banking giant UBS. According to the information filed Wednesday in the criminal case against UBS, some UBS executives are being treated as unindicted co-conspirators. “These executives occupied positions at the highest levels of management within UBS, including positions on committees that oversaw legal, compliance, tax, risk and regulatory issues related to the United States cross-border business.”

So the question is: Did Phil Gramm serve on any of these UBS committees?

If you were a company that had hired the former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee that designed the regulatory system under which your company operates, wouldn’t if be a breach of your fiduciary obligation to your shareholders NOT to have him on the legal, compliance and regulatory committees?