New York, 04/04/07
Keith Schooley, a former star financial consultant with Merrill Lynch, has signed a contract with a major publishing house for the translation and international distribution of his groundbreaking book Merrill Lynch: The Cost Could Be Fatal – My War Against Wall Street’s Giant (2002, Lakepointe Publishing). This expose′ of corruption and conspiracy on Wall Street strikes at America’s very foundation.
According to the author, publication details will not be announced prior to distribution, due to past coercion by the brokerage house whose unethical practices were exposed by Schooley in a book that set the stage for Merrill Lynch’s downfall from grace. His manuscript, too explosive for even Lloyd’s of London, provides a detailed account of his struggle to expose internal misconduct and cover-ups at the firm.
Although Schooley’s relentless courtroom battles have not yet rewarded him with justice, a subsequent inquiry pursued by former New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (now NY Governor) revealed Merrill Lynch analysts had intentionally deceived clients and that the number of investors hurt by their deception could range in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. The upshot of Spitzer’s probe ranked Merrill Lynch on Russell Mokhiber’s (Corporate Crime Reporter) The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003.
While Merrill Lynch agreed to enact a series of industry reforms, pay out fines ranging in the hundreds of millions of dollars and settle dozens of class action lawsuits, as late as January 2007 company employees were still being convicted of fraud.
Schooley believes that the corporate boards of directors involved in virtually all other major scandals of recent years have plausible deniability, but not so at Merrill Lynch. In fact, after two senior management cover-ups, Schooley brought the widespread wrongdoing directly to the attention of the firm’s directors and affirms that had the board heeded his warnings, perhaps many of Merrill Lynch’s clients would not have been duped in the numerous scandals which followed.
Today, Schooley’s uncompromising volume can be found in university libraries across the United States including at Princeton, the University of Chicago, the University of California at Berkeley, and in law libraries nationwide. Additionally, Schooley has been profiled in Bimonthly Review of Law Books as well as in Ethikos and Corporate Conduct Quarterly and in numerous other publications.