When asked in a Senate hearing this week who was to blame for the demise of Silicon Valley Bank, the lender’s former chief executive, Greg Becker, had plenty of ideas, blaming regulators, the bank’s board and its own customers for bringing it down. Yesterday, senior officials from two of the bank’s main regulators, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, told members of the same Senate panel that some of the impressions Becker had left lawmakers with were false, the New York Times reported. The contradictory congressional testimony threatened to pose yet another problem for Becker, who is facing an investigation by federal criminal prosecutors into his handling of the failed California lender as well as a shareholder lawsuit accusing him and another senior leader of misleading investors about the bank’s health in the lead-up to its failure. James N. Kramer, a lawyer for Mr. Becker, said Mr. Becker stood by the statements he had made. The regulators’ statements were part of a hearing held by the Senate Banking Committee on how bank oversight should look in the future in light of the failures of three regional banks this spring. It came two days after Mr. Becker appeared alongside former senior leaders of Signature Bank, a New York lender that collapsed just after Silicon Valley Bank did and prompted the federal government to take drastic steps to prevent widespread panic in the banking system.
