

Did the SEC Bait Goldman into Compounding Its Legal Problems? - tortilla
http://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/2010/04/did-clever-sec-bait-goldman-sachs-into.html

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grellas
_Usually, corporate lawyers are unavailable on short notice to work weekends.
When a company or individual receives a subpoena or lawsuit on a Friday, they
are left to stew in anxiety over the weekend until Monday, before their
lawyers can appropriately advice them on how to respond to the SEC._

Wow, so not true at major law firms! Partners and associates at such firms are
ready to drop everything, anytime and anywhere, to accommodate their premier
clients, and especially over something so important as this SEC complaint.

In essence, the author contends that Goldman has exacerbated its problems by
issuing a press release defending its general legal position in the case. I am
not as SEC expert, though I used to do "Wells submissions" back in the day at
a big firm, but I am dubious that this constitutes 10b-5 violations of any
sort.

The author is a former CPA who was himself convicted of a felony in this area.

Very strange item, to say the least.

~~~
gonzo
associates working weekends? all the time.

partners? not so much.

~~~
tortilla
I'm pretty sure it ruined the weekends for the partners at Sullivan & Cromwell
too :)

~~~
waterlesscloud
Yeah, it's hard to imagine that with one of the highest profile firms in the
country with one of the top firms in the world representing them facing what
could be an existential threat that the partners wouldn't be working weekends.

GS has slightly better resources than Crazy Eddies.

~~~
alecco
I bet partners in major law firms have planned agendas maximizing weekend
trips like most people earning >.5Mill/yr.

Instead, I'd object the argument that they can't do most of it remotely with
teleconferencing an keyboard-PDAs.

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spazmaster
To be honest, I didn't know what to think of SEC suing Goldman Sachs, and if
it really would matter.

But his analysis gives some hope^:

* Goldman Sachs has entrenched their position and tied their fate to Mr. Tourre's. If Tourre goes down this will have (major) implications for Goldman Sachs. They could have put Mr. Tourre on leave till the issue was settled in court.

* SEC put one of their "top dogs" on this case

* Cover up of a crime is more dangerous than the crime it self. Goldman Sachs's statement denies the accusation and says SEC's filing is 'unfounded in law and fact'. This statement could be seen as continuing to try to cover up the crime.

^hope for us plebs who would like to see banksters be brought to justice

~~~
Estragon

      ...his analysis gives some hope...
    

Exactly what I came over here to say. I have become very cynical about how
this appears to be working out.

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tlb
I'd be happier with a system that got to the bottom of the original crime,
rather than trying to entrap them into new crimes trying to defend their
public image.

~~~
dandelany
But pragmatically, I'd be happy with any system that doesn't let them walk.

~~~
tlb
Getting to the bottom of what went wrong is important to the future of the US
economy, far more important than jailing a few alleged swindlers.

------
rikthevik
Has anyone read the bio on the author? The guy was the CFO of Crazy Eddie back
in the day and got seriously worked over by the SEC. This is seriously
interesting stuff.

