Quattrone and his former firm Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) promoted and arranged Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) for many technology companies in the late 1990s, earning huge amounts of money in the process.
According to regulators, Quattrone personally earned $200 million from mid-1998 to late-2001. In mid-2000, investigations began on allegations that CSFB had improperly shared IPO profits with clients.
CSFB is not the only Wall Street firm to face such investigations, but no firm has actually been charged with a crime. CSFB reached a settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in early-2002 over the allocations, without admitting any wrong-doing, and agreed to pay the sum of $100 million.
The only criminal charges to come out of the investigations are those imposed on Quattrone. He is accused of sending an e-mail on 5th December 2000 urging colleagues to "clean up those files."