Warren Buffett attacks bankers over risk controls

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has attacked senior managers and directors at banks for shunning responsibility for risk management.

The broadside was fired in Buffett's annual letter to the shareholders of his investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway, which posted a $8.1bn profit for 2009, up from $5bn a year ago. In the letter, Buffett brands financial institutions as "derelict" if their managers do not take full responsibility for risk control. He adds the financial consequences on them should be "severe" if governments have to intervene. Buffett says: "A board of directors of a huge financial institution is derelict if it does not insist that its chief executive bear full responsibility for risk control. If he ...