Byron Georgiou
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Byron Stephen Georgiou is an American financial lawyer, investor and political activist. In 2009 he was appointed to the US
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) was established in 2010 in the United States to investigate the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. The commission, led by Phil Angelides, held public hearings, gathered testimony from hundreds, and r ...
(FCIC). He was a candidate for the US Senate from Nevada in 2011.


Education

Georgiou received his undergraduate degree from
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
in 1970, attending on a full academic scholarship, and his JD in 1974 from
Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...
.


Career

Georgiou worked on behalf of farmworkers via the
California Agricultural Labor Relations Board The Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) is an agency of the California state government that administers the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which establishes collective bargaining for farmworkers in the state.Hurt, R. Douglas ...
in the late 1970s, and as a counselor to
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
Governor
Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic P ...
in the early 1980s before going into private practice in
San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
(1983–94)."Bio from Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission"
/ref> In 2009 he was “of counsel” with the law firm Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman and Robbins, LLPCoolican, J. Patrick
"Enron foe to aid in study of financial collapse"
''Las Vegas Sun'', July 27, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-01.
and related San Diego firm
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP ("Robbins Geller") is an American law firm headquartered in San Diego, California. It is a plaintiffs law firm specializing in securities litigation and shareholder rights cases. History and notable cases In 2010 ...
.''rgrdlaw.com/attorneys/Byron-S-Georgiou.html'', Byron Georgiou bio page. No longer available at 2015-07-28. Georgiou "helped lead a team of 30 lawyers to recover $7.5 billion for investors bilked in the Enron fiasco." With Coughlin Stoia and Robbins Geller since 2000, he has had a leadership role in the litigations prosecuting financial fraud on behalf of defrauded investors at Enron,
WorldCom MCI, Inc. (formerly WorldCom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second-largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. WorldCom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunicatio ...
,
Dynegy Dynegy Inc. is an electric company based in Houston, Texas. It owns and operates a number of power stations in the U.S., all of which are powered by fossil fuels. Dynegy was acquired by Vistra Corp on April 9, 2018. The company is located at 601 ...
,
AOL Time Warner Warner Media, LLC (doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City. It was established as Time Warner i ...
, and
UnitedHealth UnitedHealth Group Incorporated is an American multinational for-profit company specializing in health insurance and health care services based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Selling insurance products under UnitedHealthcare, and health care serv ...
. He is currently president of Georgiou Enterprises, which has wide-ranging interests including partnerships in several private equity firms, a portfolio of carbon emission reduction projects in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
that generate
carbon credits Carbon offsetting is a carbon trading mechanism that enables entities to compensate for offset greenhouse gas emissions by investing in projects that reduce, avoid, or remove emissions elsewhere. When an entity invests in a carbon offsetting p ...
under the
Kyoto protocol The was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is oc ...
, environmental cleanup of deep
coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...
sites, residential and commercial real estate and
golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, tee box, a #Fairway and rough, fairway, the #Fairway and rough, rough and other hazard (golf), hazards, and ...
management and development, and the provision of customer services at regional shopping centers throughout America. He also serves on the advisory board of
Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...
's
corporate governance Corporate governance refers to the mechanisms, processes, practices, and relations by which corporations are controlled and operated by their boards of directors, managers, shareholders, and stakeholders. Definitions "Corporate governance" may ...
program and contributes to its blog.


Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

Georgiou was one of three appointees by
United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...
Majority Leader
Harry Reid Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2 ...
to the FCIC, along with fellow Nevada resident
Heather Murren Heather Miller (formerly Murren, born May 30, 1966) is an American businesswoman. She is a private investor, former Wall Street securities analyst. She served as a Congressional appointed commissioner on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in ...
and Sen.
Bob Graham Daniel Robert Graham (November 9, 1936 – April 16, 2024) was an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 38th List of governors of Florida, governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senate, United States senat ...
, (D- FL). At the time of Georgiou's appointment to the commission, concerns were raised about a
conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates t ...
, pointing to Coughlin Stoia lawsuits against big
Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...
firms. A report at the time said Georgiou had no equity in the firm and no financial stake in the lawsuits.
Lucian Bebchuk Lucian Arye Bebchuk (born 1955) is a professor at Harvard Law School focusing on economics and finance. Life and career Bebchuk has a B.A. in mathematics and economics from the University of Haifa (1977), an LL.B. from the University of Tel A ...
, who runs the Harvard Law corporate governance program and consulted with Georgiou on the financial-fraud issues, said Georgiou brought "a rich experience and broad perspective" to the commission assignment, at the same time. In the opening FCIC session in September, 2009, "Commissioner Georgiou highlighted the importance of untangling the '
too big to fail "Too big to fail" (TBTF) is a theory in banking and finance that asserts that certain corporations, particularly financial institutions, are so large and so interconnected with an economy that their failure would be disastrous to the greater e ...
' phenomenon. He emphasized that the Commission should probe the role played by financial instruments and policies which allowed the creators of securities to abandon responsibility for the ultimate performance or failure of assets."


House campaign California

In 1990 he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the Democratic primary he was defeated by incumbent Jim Bates 63% to 37%.


Senate campaign Nevada

In March 2011, Georgiou officially entered the race for the U.S. Senate in Nevada, claiming he had received "significant encouragement to run both at a local and national level." He was the first Democrat to file his candidacy for the seat, which opened upon the announced retirement of Republican incumbent
John Ensign John Eric Ensign (born March 25, 1958) is an American veterinarian and former politician who served as a United States Senator from Nevada from 2001 until his resignation in 2011 amid a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into his attempts to ...
. On August 8, 2011, Georgiou ended his campaign, saying that he could "more effectively contribute to resolution of the serious economic issues facing our state and nation" through his work in the private sector than in the Senate.


Xtreme Green Electric Vehicles, Inc.

In 2015, Georgiou was serving as CEO and chairperson of the Board of Xtreme Green Electric Vehicles, Inc. in Las Vegas.Elliott, Daryl
"Xtreme Green EVs For Police, Security, Military, Farming, & Mining Industries"
''CleanTechnica'', January 31, 2015. Retrieved 2015-07-28.


Personal life

Georgiou has lived in the
Las Vegas Valley The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the Southern Nevada, southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan St ...
since 2005 with his wife, Dr. Thérèse Collins. The couple has three daughters.


References


External links


Byron Georgiou's website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Georgiou, Byron American lawyers American activists Living people Harvard Law School alumni Stanford University alumni Nevada Democrats Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) People from Las Vegas