Matt Levine, Columnist

Troubled Banks and Harvard's Challenges

September 29, 2016 at 1:24 PM UTC

Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, he was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; and an editor of Dealbreaker.

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Wells Fargo.

Today the House Financial Services Committee takes its turn yelling at Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf about the bank's fake-accounts scandal. Stumpf had injured his hand before his Senate immiseration last week, and I'm expecting him to show up at the House in a full-body cast with a sign that says "what I gave up $41 million, come on," taped to him. Honestly no one seems that mollified by Stumpf's $41 million voluntary clawback? I'm not sure that anyone should be, really, but the tone of Wells Fargo discussions suggest that no one is going to be mollified by anything. Elizabeth Warren has called for a criminal investigation. If I were in Stumpf's shoes I might have resigned before the Senate hearing, but that is just because I don't like confrontation and have no tolerance whatsoever for being yelled at by a room full of politicians. And I guess any actual bank CEO these days has to relish that. Here are "5 Things to Watch at Wells Fargo's House Hearing," though I will be watching for only two things, (1) what sort of physical injury will Stumpf display this time and (2) will he quit during the hearing just to make it stop?