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WASHINGTON, Oct 10, 2008 (AFP) - A finance committee in the US Congress is to expand its probe into the causes of the financial crisis next week by calling on a number of leading investment managers to testify, a leading lawmaker announced Friday.
George Soros, a veteran financier famous for his speculation against the British pound on "Black Wednesday" in 1992, is among a host of leading names to be called to speak with lawmakers.
"This financial crisis has shaken the global economy. Congress cannot wait until a new administration arrives in January to examine what went wrong and who should be held accountable," said the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Henry Waxman, in a statement.
Presidential and congressional elections are planned for November 4, with the new regime set to take over in January next year.
Committee hearings are planned on October 16 for Soros, head of Soros Fund Management; Alfred Paulson, chairman of Paulson & Co; Philip Falcone, director of Harbinger Capital Partners; James Simons, director of Renaissance Technologies LLC; and Kenneth Griffin, head of Citadel Investment Group.
On October 23, the commission will hear from regulators, including former treasury secretary John Snow and Christopher Cox, the current chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the stock market regulator.
Waxman led a series of hearings this week during which he heavily criticised the former head of bankrupt Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld, who admitted to taking more than 300 million dollars home since 2000.
He also took aim at managers of newly nationalized AIG whom he accused of organising a lavish spa retreat for managers only a week after the company was saved by the federal government.
AIG later denied this, saying the event was for independent agents that bring business to the company and was not attended by headquarters executives.
"Black Wednesday" was in 1992 when the Bank of England tried in vain to keep the pound within a range required for the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in the face of ferocious selling by Soros and other currency market investors.
Billionaire Soros is now a leading funder of humanitarian projects and has called for tighter regulation of hedge funds, aggressive investment funds blamed by some for market volatility.
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