

Finally, a judge stands up to Wall Street - lawnchair_larry
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/finally-a-judge-stands-up-to-wall-street-20111110

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TomOfTTB
I agree this shouldn't be posted on HN but just to clarify. My issue with this
article is it doesn't spell out the law behind the case. If the SEC doesn't
think they can win a case against Citigroup and they were settling to impose
whatever punishment they could then this judge isn't a hero at all. In fact
he'll be facilitating Citigroup by letting them get away with this completely.

By not telling us what law Citigroup violated and giving us the language in
the law so we can make our own judgment this article prevents us from
discussing the issue intellectually. Which makes it just an emotional argument
and hence inappropriate for HN

~~~
dpatru
> If the SEC doesn't think they can win a case against Citigroup and they were
> settling to impose whatever punishment they could then this judge isn't a
> hero at all.

If the SEC can't prove their case, then they shouldn't be imposing any fine at
all.

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dpatru
Summary: Details how Citigroup almost got away with paying a $125M fine for
defrauding its customers $700M.

"The amazing thing about the wave of corruption that has overtaken the
financial services industry is that most of it couldn’t happen without
virtually every player at every level signing off on these deals. From the
ratings agencies to the law firms to the accounting firms to the regulators to
the bank executives themselves, everybody had to be on board in order for a
lot of these fraud schemes to work.

"Judges are a part of that picture, and too often, members of the bench sign
off on dirty deals made between banks and regulators when the law says that
such settlements must be “fair, reasonable, adequate and in the public
interest.”

Edit: changed Bank of America to Citigroup. Wrong bank.

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hugh3
1\. Politics

2\. Editorialising

3\. Inaccurate in its implications (what, no judge has ever _"stood up to Wall
Street"_ , whatever that means, before?)

4\. From Rolling Stone, and not on the subject of music.

