"Corruption and greed" are prevalent in many companies across the country

Corruption part of corporate culture By KAJA WHITEHOUSE Last Updated: 1:03 AM, June 7, 2011 Posted: 12:14 AM, June 7, 2011 "Corruption and greed" are not only spreading across Wall Street but are prevalent in many companies across the country -- both large and small -- according to the federal government's top Manhattan crime fighter. Corporate culture as a whole has become "increasingly corrupt," US Attorney Preet Bharara said last night in a Midtown speech before a group of financial writers. Bharara, who is in the midst of an aggressive war against insider trading that has won the guilty pleas of more than two dozen executives and traders, said even more dangerous, perhaps, is that some "prominent and powerful publicly traded companies" seem "single-mindedly focused on staying an inch away from the line" of what is illegal. He equated this new way of doing business to a driver who curbs his drinking just enough to stay under the legal blood-alcohol limit. "Aspiring to the minimum is a recipe for disaster," he warned. In addition, Bharara sought to dispel the notion that some firms are too big to jail. "We should not be telling any institution that it is too big to be prosecuted," Bharara said late Monday at an event sponsored by the New York Financial Writers Association. No company will "get a get-out-of-jail-free card based on size." The remarks seemed directed at comments made last week by a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst who said investment bank Goldman Sachs won't face criminal prosecution on mortgage-linked securities because that might threaten the country's financial health. Bharara also sought to cool criticisms that his office's campaign to wipe out illegal trading is a distraction from finding and prosecuting the culprits of the financial crisis.