Bill Black: Fraud and Financial Regulation

In 1987 Charles Keating asked five U.S. Senators—the Keating Five—to meet with regulators in an effort to convince them to back off Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. One of the regulators present was William K. Black, of whom Keating would later write “get Black—kill him dead.” Lincoln ultimately failed and Keating went to prison for fraud. In the decades since Lincoln’s failure and the savings and loan crisis, frauds continued to plague the financial industry, culminating in the crisis of 2007-08. The government’s response failed to seriously address the problem of financial frauds, and they continue to occur. Currently a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University of Minnesota, Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One and developed the concept of “control fraud” to describe the use of a legitimate entity by its executives as a weapon to commit fraud—something that occurs with alarming frequency, particularly in the financial industry. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention, the litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, senior vice president and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and Senior Deputy Chief Counsel at the Office of Thrift Supervision. He has advised leaders from around the world on combating fraud and financial crises. Sponsored by the Harvard Law Forum, the Tax Law and Financial Regulation Students Association, the Modern Money Network, and the DOS Grant Fund.