SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. unveiled details late Friday of a new Business Standards Committee that the firm has set up to bolster the investment bank's client focus and increase the transparency of its activities.
The new committee will review Goldman's business standards then make recommendations to the firm's board of directors and senior management.
One area of focus will be on the suitability of some types of complex structure products for different Goldman clients.
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The committee will be headed by Gerald Corrigan, chairman of Goldman Sachs Bank USA, and Michael Evans, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs and chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia.
"We recognize that there is a disconnect between how we view the firm and how the broader public perceives our roles and activities," Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein said in a statement on Friday. "This initiative is consistent with our obligation to ensure that our standards across our business activities are of the highest quality and represent the benchmark for our industry globally fast payday loan."
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud charge against Goldman last month, alleging that the firm didn't tell investors in a structured product known as a collateralized debt obligation that hedge fund firm Paulson & Co. helped put the deal together and was betting against it. Goldman has said it did nothing wrong, while Paulson wasn't charged.
In the wake of the suit, Goldman executives and top mortgage traders were hauled in front of a Congressional committee where they were criticized for client conflicts of interest.
The Department of Justice has launched a criminal probe into Goldman's activities in the mortgage-bond market and this investigation has broadened to include other Wall Street firms J.P. Morgan Chase , Citigroup , Deutsche Bank , UBS AG and Morgan Stanley , according to the Wall Street Journal.
