Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s threat to halt the state’s dealings with Bank of America Corp. over a shut-down factory in Chicago extends a “dangerous” trend of politicians meddling with commerce, a former general counsel of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.
Blagojevich, a Democrat, yesterday said the biggest U.S. retail bank won’t get any more state business unless it restores credit to Republic Windows & Doors, whose workers are staging a sit-in. John Douglas, an attorney with Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker in Atlanta, said Blagojevich and Senator Christopher Dodd -- who called on General Motors Corp. to fire Chief Executive Rick Wagoner -- can’t tell companies how to run their business.
“This is a very dangerous thing,” said Douglas, who was at the FDIC from 1987 to 1989 and has since represented financial institutions including Bank of America. “There becomes an expectation that these government officials have some say over what the institution does,” he said in an interview.
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