U.S. Is Said to Open Investigation Into Silicon Valley Bank Collapse
Legal experts said a possible focus of the investigation could be insider sales by several bank executives in the weeks before the bank’s failure.
By Matthew Goldstein and Katie Benner
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the California lender that was taken over by federal regulators on Friday after its depositors rushed to pull their money out of the bank, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
The investigation is in its early stages and it is unclear just what federal prosecutors are focused on, the person said. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
One potential focus could be sales of company shares by several bank executives in the weeks before the bank’s failure, several legal experts said.
The sales generated millions of dollars in proceeds, though some of the bank’s executives sold stock pursuant to insider selling plans that set the timing of such sales in advance. Such plans are setup by corporate executives to avoid the appearance of trading on confidential information.
For example, under a prearranged plan, Silicon Valley Bank’s former chief executive, Gregory Becker, exercised options in early March that permitted him to sell shares worth about $3 million.
Some politicians have said the bank executives should return any money they made from those stock sales.
Mr. Becker could not be immediately reached for comment. Lawyers from Sullivan & Cromwell, which has been doing legal work for the bank, did not return requests for comment. The investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
It is not uncommon for investigators to look into prearranged stock selling plans when the sales take place shortly before bad news that tanks a company’s stock.
Andrew Calamari, a lawyer for Finn Dixon & Herling and a former director of the New York office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said insider sales were an obvious issue for prosecutors to investigate. He also said if the S.E.C. were to open an investigation, it too would look at the insider sales and the disclosures by the bank about its financial heal
A number of lawyers said they expected the S.E.C. to also open an inquiry.
“Without speaking to any individual entity or person, we will investigate and bring enforcement actions if we find violations of the federal securities laws,” Gary Gensler, the S.E.C. chair, said in a statement over the weekend in response to the trouble in the banking sector.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was precipitated by a bank run by customers who had so-called uninsured deposits — accounts that exceeded the $250,000 limit on federally guaranteed deposit insurance — and tried to withdraw those funds.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation seized the bank on Friday, and two days later seized another bank, Signature Bank, that was facing a similar problem. The F.D.I.C. and the Federal Reserve also said all depositors of both banks would be made whole, avoiding concerns the business customers of the banks might not be able to pay their employees.
The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank raised widespread fear of depositors pulling their money out of regional lenders — a move that could destabilize the banking system. But the actions taken by federal regulators over the weekend appeared to stem some of that fear, pushing stocks of regional banks higher on Tuesday.
Matthew Goldstein covers Wall Street and white-collar crime and housing issues. @mattgoldstein26
Katie Benner covers the Justice Department. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @ktbenner