Due to growing concern over State Treasurer Janet Cowell’s decision to shift a larger share of the state employee’s pension fund into “alternative” investments that carry higher consultancy fees, the State Employee’s Association of NC (SEANC) has hired an investigator to look into potential conflicts of interest. As reported in the N&O:
The State Employees Association of North Carolina announced Monday it hired a forensic investigator to look at the state pension investments for “conflicts of interest related to TSERS investments and potential violations of the federal securities laws.”
SEANC will pay Edward “Ted” Siedle, a Florida-based consultant who is known for investigating pension investments, $65,000 for the report.
Records from the National Institute on Money in State Politics show that Cowell’s 2012 campaign has received more money from out of state sources than from North Carolina backers, and in 2008 she received $225,000 in New York-based contributions alone. Why so much financial support from far-away places?…..
As you may already know, the pension fund is aggressively pursuing lead plaintiff status in one of many class action lawsuits against Facebook and its IPO underwriters. Which leads us to the issue of the pension fund’s choices to represent the fund in this lawsuit – a position if attained would be quite lucrative. Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann (Bernstein) is a New York based law firm specializing in securities class action suits. Labaton Sucharow (Laboton) is also based in New York and has the same specialization.
Something else they have in common: Both are donors to Janet Cowell.
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