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PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND, WHARTON & GARRISON LLP
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LLOYD K GARRISON ( 1946 1991 J
RANDOLPH E PAUL (1946-1956)
SIMON H
RIFKIND
{ 1950 1995)
LOUIS S WEISS
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TRACEY A ZACCONE
T ROBERT ZOCHOWSKI JR
--NOT ADMITTED TO THE NEW YORK BAR
January 7, 2011
By Federal Express
Gary J. Cohen, Esq.
General Counsel
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
1717 Pennsylvania A venue, NW
Suite 800
Washington, DC 20006-4614
Financial Crisis fnquil)' Commission ("FCIC" or "Commission")
Dear Gary:
We represent Citigroup Inc. ("Citi" or the "Company") and Thomas
Maheras in connection with the Commission's inquiry and write in response to your
January 4, 20 ll letter (the "January 4 letter") regarding the potential public release of a
purported statement made by Mr. Maheras in his FCIC interview.
In the January 4 letter, you provide a "quote" from the FCIC's March 10,
2010 interview of Mr. Maheras that you indicate the Commission "may include or
paraphrase" in its final report.
PAUL, WElSS, RlFKIND, WHARTON & GARRISON LLP
Gary J. Cohen. Esq.
2
The excerpt reads:
"Maheras told the FCIC that he spent less than 1% of his
time thinking about or dealing with the COO business. 'It
was actually through that whole period very far from the
core activity, so it would have been a very limited amount
of time."'
We arc disappointed that the Commission has indicated its intent to rely
upon this excerpt in its report. As you know, we objected to the usefulness of this line of
questioning at the time of the interview for reasons that should be obvious: it is
impossible for an individual to quantify how much time he spends thinking about or
dealing with an issue-particularly during a time of unprecedented crisis, when nothing
was business as usual--and the usefulness of any testimony that purports to provide such
a quantification is highly suspect at best.
Moreover, even to the extent that the FClC finds some value in this line of
inquiry, the selected excerpt-- coupled with the FClC's own editorializing-does not
accurately represent what Mr. Maheras said during his March 10 interview. The
misleading nature of the Commission's selective quotation is particularly egregious,
given that a transcript exists of Mr. Maheras's interview.
Specifically, Mr. Maheras's statement was made with respect to a specific
time period during his tenure at Citi--as is obvious from the transcript. The failure to
provide this contextual infom1ation improperly suggests that Mr. Maheras spent less than
1% of his time thinking about or dealing with the COO business throughout the entire
time he was Citi. In fact, Mr. Maheras expressly stated that, in the latter half of2007, he
spent up to 5% of his time thinking about COOs or issues related to COOs. 1 The FCIC's
mischaracterization implies that Mr. Maheras was not focused on COOs even at a time
when issues related to the structured credit business were of increasing prominence at
Citi. We respectfully request that the Commission remove the quote from its report or, at
a minimum, provide an accurate description of any excerpts of Mr. Maheras's testimony
that it intends to usc.
Indeed, a more accurate excerpt would reveal that Mr. Maheras testified that, from
2004 to 2006, while head ofCiti's global capital markets department, he spent a
fraction of 1% of his time thinking about or dealing with the COO business. In 2002,
while head ofCiti's global fixed income department, Mr. Maheras stated that he spent
1% of his time thinking about COOs or anything related to COOs. It was regarding
the 2002 time period-and only that time period-that Mr. Maheras stated that "[i)t
was actually through that whole period very far from the core activity, so it would
have been a very limited amount of time."
PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND, WHARTON & GARRISON LLP
Gary J. Cohen, Esq.
3
*
*
*
On behalf of Citi, we object to the inclusion in your public report of
inaccurate or misleading infom1ation or quotes, such as the quote identified above and
those identified in our prior submissions. We reserve the right to supplement this Jetter
with additional objections.
Respectfully submitted,
BradS. Karp
cc:
Lee S. Richards III
Daniel C. Zinman
@FedFRASER