Fabrice Tourre, an ex-Goldman Sachs trader, was found liable for fraud as he cost investors one billion dollars. Tourre mislead investors into investing into a complex mortgage-based financial product, which was designed to fail. Tourre failed to inform clients that hedge fund titan John Paulson helped select the securities underlying the product, which he planned to bet against. Tourre made massive profits from selling these rotten MBS’s that he knew would fail. Tourre’s unethical behaviour doesn’t stop there; he also sent emails to his girlfriend boasting about how he sold toxic mortgage bonds to widows and orphans which he ran into at the airport. Although Tourre was caught and held liable for these charges he wasn’t the only one creating toxic securities and selling them to make profits. In fact other top executives made enormous amounts of money doing the very same thing in the middle of the financial crisis. In all likelihood Tourre will not face any jail time for his actions but may face a lifetime ban from the financial service industries. Tourre’s decision to maximize his profits despite sabotaging his investors at the same time showcases a lack of ethics.
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