"What hath Spitzer wrought?" may be a common question on the lips of people this summer as the effects of the major U.S. settlement against investment banks accused of manipulating stock research begins to go into effect. With ten major I-banks required to buy large quantities of research from independent suppliers and their own pricey researchers pinned behind "Chinese walls" of legal compliance requirements, these major financial institutions are facing an environment that is calling the very foundations of their profitability into question. The very thing that brought them to power - electronic content - may wind up being the force that becomes their undoing, with independent research providers a key lynchpin of the unfolding process.
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