Bear Stearns Co

Attempts to place blame for the great financial crisis that sent the economy into a nose dive last year have made household names of top executives such as Angelo R. Mozilo, Richard Fuld and Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. But the only major criminal case to emerge thus far from the global cataclysm involves two lesser-known hedge fund managers who will be thrust into the spotlight today when their trial begins with jury selection in a Brooklyn courtroom. Federal prosecutors allege that former Bear Stearns Cos. fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin -- in a frantic, eventually unsuccessful scramble in mid-2007 to keep their mortgage bond funds from collapsing -- misled investors about the deepening woes in the portfolios.

Brokerage Bear Stearns Cos. confirmed Tuesday that longtime Chief Executive James "Jimmy" Cayne had stepped down, marking the third CEO departure from a major investment bank since the sub-prime mortgage crisis began to hammer Wall Street last spring. Cayne, whose exit had been rumored on Monday, handed the company's reins to its president, Alan Schwartz, as expected.

The battered global financial system looked a lot more fragile Friday as one of Wall Street's biggest investment houses was forced to get an emergency loan from the Federal Reserve, raising the specter of more giant securities firms laid low by the global credit crisis. Bear Stearns Cos. said its ability to finance its operations had "significantly deteriorated" in the preceding 24 hours, compelling it to borrow an undisclosed amount of money from the Fed.

Throughout Wall Street's history, major financial system upheavals often have culminated with the spectacular failure of a marquee name. That was the case in December 1994, when Orange County filed for bankruptcy protection after getting caught on the wrong side of a sharp jump in interest rates. In September 1998, the Federal Reserve helped arrange a bailout of the giant investment fund Long-Term Capital Management after it neared collapse from bad bets in wildly swinging markets.

The Federal Reserve took extraordinary steps Sunday to bolster investors' shaken confidence, opening a lending window to securities firms, slicing a key interest rate and backing with $30 billion in emergency funds the bargain-basement purchase of ailing Bear Stearns Cos. by rival JPMorgan Chase & Co.

J.C. Flowers & Co. offered to pay $3 billion for a 90% equity stake in Bear Stearns Cos. one day before JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy the securities firm for about $240 million. The March 15 proposal from Flowers, the private equity firm founded by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker J. Christopher Flowers, fell apart the next day when his company failed to get bank financing and Federal Reserve backing, according a regulatory filing from JPMorgan on Friday.

Beverly Hills billionaire H. Roger Wang has accused Bear Stearns Cos. of duping him and his wife into buying 150,000 shares of the struggling brokerage's stock -- including 100,000 shares on March 14, the day that federal officials first intervened to keep the firm from tumbling into bankruptcy. The lawsuit is one of many legal actions spawned by the near-collapse of the venerable Wall Street firm. Wang, who operates high-end retail stores in China, is seeking $10 million in damages.

UBS, Europe's biggest bank by assets, and Bear Stearns Cos. were subpoenaed by Massachusetts officials looking into why the companies wrote upbeat reports on sub-prime mortgage lenders as bad loans rose to a four-year high. The firms were asked to provide documents by March 27, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, the state's top financial industry regulator, said Tuesday.

Bear Stearns Cos., the biggest U.S. underwriter of mortgage-backed bonds, said rising sub-prime loan delinquencies were not spilling over into other markets and may be an opportunity for the firm to expand its market share. Making loans to borrowers with poor credit histories and packaging them into bonds accounted for 3% of Bear Stearns' mortgage business, Chief Financial Officer Samuel Molinaro said Thursday after the New York firm announced an 8% increase in first-quarter earnings.