Hearings & Testimony

In the course of its research and investigation, the Commission held 19 days of public hearings in New York, Washington, D.C., and communities across the country that were hard hit by the crisis. Hearings focused on topics such as avoiding future catastrophe, complex financial derivatives, credit rating agencies, excess risk and financial speculation, government-sponsored enterprises, the shadow banking system, subprime lending practices and securitization, and too big to fail.

To bring these subjects out of the realm of the abstract, the Commission conducted case study investigations of specific financial firms—and in many cases specific facets of these institutions—that played pivotal roles. Those institutions included American International Group (AIG), Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Countrywide Financial, Fannie Mae, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Moody’s, and Wachovia.

The Commission also examined the roles of policy makers and regulators, including at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (and its successor, the Federal Housing Finance Agency), the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Treasury Department.