The Quattrone Scandal

         Frank Quattrone was one of the biggest American Technology investment bankers after the 1990s tech boom. He was responsible for starting technology sector franchises at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse First Boston, and even helped technology companies like Netscape, Cisco, and Amazon.com go public during the tech boom. He also drove his firm, Qatalyst Partners, to one of the top M&A advisors to technology companies, advising on $33bn worth of US tech transactions in 2015, within the top 20 US M&A advisors. Though he had some roots in the tech boom, Quattrone really took off with the dotcom bubble, only to crumble, when the bubble was finally popped.
        Quattrone first arrived in California in 1979 as a junior banker for Morgan Stanley. The large New York-based firms at the time considered the technology industry to be too small to devote large resources to, leaving niche West Coast firms such as Hambrecht & Quist and Robertson Stephens to service emerging companies. Finally, his long standing roots in the tech community paid off when the dotcom bubble exploded. He left Morgan Stanley and soon after, Credit Suisse First Boston hired Mr Quattrone to lead its technology practice, which he quickly made competitive against titans Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. At Credit Suisse, his team of hundreds included not just bankers but research analysts and wealth managers who reported directly to him. His annual compensation was assumed to be in excess of $100m.
As the dotcom era collapsed, however, the conflicted arrangements by which bankers had control over other areas of the firm drew scrutiny. Several common practices connected with IPOs came under attack in the press leading to investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Association of Securities Dealers, and a federal grand jury. Quattrone feared being charged in connection with such acts and therefore engaged in obstruction of justice.
It was soon released that Quattrone, among other bankers had destroyed valuable evidence for the government’s IPO probe while they were still under subpoena by the government. Destroying evidence is, as we all know, a case of obstruction of justice and Quattrone was brought in and sentenced 18 months in prison. However, through a miracle, Quattrone was able to beat back 1 count of obstruction of justice and another count of witness tampering. Basically, he argued that he was unaware of the subpoena that was put in place when he destroyed the evidence and he was adhering to company policy, which allowed him to destroy files that were old and outdated.

Sources:
https://www.ft.com/content/4d17337a-c53c-11e5-808f-8231cd71622e
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11928477/ns/business-corporate_scandals/t/frank-quattrones-conviction-overturned/#.XpnTpDrYphE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Quattrone
https://atlassociety.org/commentary/capitalism-and-morality/capitalism-morality-blog/3647-the-case-for-frank-quattrone