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Calpers Manager Admits to Luxury Travel Gifts
August 20, 2010

Court testimony from a senior California Public Employees’ Retirement System portfolio manager relating to luxury travel and gifts from clients has shocked ethics experts, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Joncarlo Mark testified in pre-trial proceedings as part of a corruption inquiry into the embattled pension fund, and said that for years, top investment staff were allowed to accept private jet flights and other forms of luxury travel without public disclosure.

Mr. Mark said he had flown to such places as Shanghai, Mumbai and New York in private jets on the dime of financial firms in business with Calpers. He also said that some firms paid for many commercial flights on which he traveled in first or business class.

A Calpers spokeswoman said fund officials did not have to disclose the gifts because luxury travel was part of Calpers’s contracts with its clients.

But Robert Fellmeth, executive director of the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego, told The Los Angeles Times: “Not only should the public have been told that these trips were going on, the public should have been stopping them.”

Source :- http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com