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The Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private-equity firms, has agreed to pay $20 million and stop using politically connected operatives to land business with government pension systems around the country, New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced yesterday.
Cuomo intends the
first-of-its-kind $ettlement to serve as a model for nationwide restrictions aimed at ending corruption and conflicts of interest in public pension funds. He said he hopes that Congress or the Securities and Exchange Commission ensure those limits are applied across the pension investment industry.
"This is a revolutionary agreement," Cuomo said in a conference call with reporters.
"I believe it totally changes the way people operate: It ends pay to play, it bans the selling of access, it puts the political power brokers out of business."