Andrew Cuomo, Steve Rattner settle N.Y. pension fund case
Days before leaving office, New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo settled lawsuits he filed against former Obama administration advisor Steven Rattner.
A financier who led the federal bailout and restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler, Rattner agreed to pay $10 million to end the civil litigation. The suits accused him of paying more than $1 million in kickbacks to help his former firm, Quadrangle Group, win contracts to manage $150 million in assets in a state pension fund.
Rattner was one of several investment managers accused of improperly securing business from the fund. Eight people have pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the case.
Cuomo, who sued Rattner the same day in November that the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it was settling with the financier, had asked that Rattner be permanently barred from the securities industry and ordered to pay $26 million.
The settlement bars Rattner only from seeking business from public pension funds in New York state for five years.
After the suits were filed, the attorney general and the former presidential counselor traded barbs, with Rattner calling Cuomo a bully and Cuomo saying the defendant’s conduct amounted to “stealing taxpayers’ money.”
Cuomo is leaving office at the end of the year to become governor of New York.
