Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1052372
www.HartfordBusiness.com • November 19, 2018 • Hartford Business Journal 9 Are you glad you stepped forward? It's been the most rewarding work experience of my life. If you hadn't served two terms as AG, what would you be doing? I'd probably be in private practice. Possibly academia. (Jepsen taught while in law school and is a former adjunct professor at the UConn School of Law.) What are your future plans? I haven't ruled anything out. Every- thing's on the table. (Jepsen said there's been outreach to him over the years for jobs ranging from the financial-services sector to Obama White House positions. He declined to elaborate, except to say he rejected all of them. With respect to private-sector op- portunities, he said he wouldn't entertain offers until after the election. He said he has no plans to join the Lamont adminis- tration or seek a judgeship.) Why did you decide not to run for re- election? "I'll turn 64 in (late) November. I want to work a dozen more years. And at 64 I'll have more and different op- portunities than I'll have at 68." What's been your biggest accomplish- ments/contributions as AG? What I'm proudest of is that Con- necticut has in my tenure been a leader nationally. … I'm very proud of the fact that states' attorneys general work well together on a bipartisan basis to tackle issues of national significance. When Equifax has a data breach, it's not just one state, it's the whole country. When Wall Street collapses in 2008, it affects the entire economy. AGs are not like the U.S. Congress. We're not paralyzed with gridlock. Some issues split on a partisan basis; some issues split on a regional basis. But where the relationships are pre- served, and we can work together on a bipartisan basis, we do. And Connecticut, in my years, has become a leader in these national issues, ranging from the national mortgage-foreclosure settlement, which brought $25 billion in relief to distressed homeowners, including about 6,000 Connecticut homeowners. Suing Standard & Poor's and Moody's for mislabeling mortgage-backed se- curities. Connecticut is the lead state pulling for other states on all the big data breaches — Home Depot, Nei- man Marcus, Anthem and Equifax. Connecticut currently is one of the lead states on the opioid crisis. And Connecticut uniquely leads a massive 47-state investigation into pervasive price fixing in the generic- drug market, which has cost consum- ers billions and billions of dollars. I think that's going to break open in a more public way than it has. How did the generic drug price-fixing investigation come about? In July of 2014, one of the guys in our antitrust department read a New York Times article about a spike in generic- drug prices and asked permission to investigate. … Pretty soon we were turning over information to the Justice Department, which started an investiga- tion as well. For more than two years, it was Connecticut alone investigating. We launched the multi-state (probe) in Sept. 2016. Now, we have 47 states helping us. It's going to be enormous. We filed a lawsuit (in October 2017) in- volving 15 drugs, 18 drug manufacturers and two highly placed executives. (The investigation centers on drugmak- ers and pharmaceutical executives who have allegedly colluded to inflate generic- drug prices.) What's the one thing you wish you could have done differently as AG? There are some issues I wish we could have done more on. But the one that sticks out the most for me is the crumbling-foundations issue. I've got limits to my jurisdiction. For example, I don't have any criminal jurisdiction. There are limits to what legal authority I have. My heart goes out to the home- owners whose life savings are locked up in … foundations that are collapsing. How would you characterize your rela- tionship with the business community? I believe I have an extremely posi- tive relationship with the business community. Even before I was elected, I initiated a program of systematic outreach to virtually every sector I could identify of the business commu- nity, including one-on-one or small- group visits with the general counsels of leading corporations, large insur- ance companies, to speaking to local chambers of commerce, to identifying industry trade groups, whether it was the hospital association, the [Connect- icut Business & Industry Association], the Hartford Chamber. And especially over the course of my election cam- paign in 2010, plus the first year or two in office. And the message was a consistent message, which is that my door would always be open. You're not going to learn about an investigation through a press conference. We're not going to shoot first, then ask questions. … Even though I don't have criminal jurisdic- tion, I'm acutely aware that if I get the facts wrong, or the law wrong, I can destroy an innocent person's life forever. I really try to keep focused on that we get things right. And the other perspective I've brought in my discussions with the business community was, sure, there are bad actors out there that you need to go after … and seek real punishment for them. But more often than not, in my life experience, issues are nuanced. They're not gray on gray. Or they're not 100 percent right, or 100 percent wrong. That being my frame of mind means I tend to approach most issues as prob- lems to be solved, not as opportunities for confrontation. I want the solution to the problem, or to the issue, to reflect the nuance. … I think the business com- munity appreciated that approach. What's your advice for your successor? The most important advice is to rec- ognize that the most important asset this office has is its credibility. And you have to protect the credibility of the of- fice. And that means saying 'no' to your friends. … Keep playing the legal issues completely straight, and make sure you're listening to all sides. Milestones Here is a list of some significant cases opened or settled during Jepsen's tenure: Largest single financial settlement in state's history ($120M settlement with RBS in 2016). Led the landmark multi-state settlements with Standard & Poor's ($1.375B) and Moody's ($863M) over conduct related to 2008 financial crisis. Served on executive team negotiating landmark $25B National Mortgage Foreclosure Settlement, which brought relief to thousands of distressed Connecticut homeowners. Led the multi-state ebooks antitrust litigation and settlements, which returned more than $500M to ebook purchasers nationwide. Negotiated deal through United Illuminating/Iberdrola merger proceedings to clean up contamination at English Station in New Haven Consumer privacy settlements with Google, Facebook, Target, Citibank and Nation- wide Insurance, among others. Currently leading more than 40 states in an investigation and litigation alleging wide- spread anti-competitive collusion and price fixing in the generic-drug industry. Served on executive committee of multi-state settlements with Volkswagen, resulting in about $31 million for the state to resolve environmental and consumer protection claims, and an additional $52 million for Connecticut's electric vehicle grid. Source: Connecticut Attorney General's Office Outgoing Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen says credibility is vital to protecting the rights of the state and its citizens. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED