U.S. District Judge Frederic Block of Brooklyn federal court will probably, in the end, approve a $1 million settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and former Bear Stearns fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin. He said as much in open court Monday, presiding over a settlement hearing rather than the civil trial scheduled to begin that day. But for everyone except Cioffi, Tannin, and their lawyers, the real story at Monday’s hearing was Block’s stream-of-consciousness musings on the appropriate role of a judge overseeing an SEC case. If there was any doubt that U.S. Senior District Judge Jed Rakoff has inspired soul-searching in the nation’s federal judiciary, the utterly compelling transcript of the hearing before Block should put it to rest. (My Reuters colleague Jessica Dye attended the hearing and sent me the transcript.)
The federal judge overseeing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s fraud case against Citigroup became even more direct in his criticism of the agency’s actions on Thursday, accusing the commission of misleading both his court and the federal court of appeals.
One by One, judges are going to finally have enough of the ponzi’s.
To the judges who aren’t turning a blind eye… thank you.
NYT-
A federal judge in Wisconsin has challenged the Securities and Exchange Commission over a proposed settlement of fraud charges against a publicly traded company, citing as a precedent the agency’s pending case against Citigroup.
That represents a significant expansion of the impact of the Citigroup case, in which Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court in New York threw out a proposed settlement between the company and the S.E.C.
Judge Rakoff said he had rejected the Citigroup settlement because there were no established facts on which to base a decision whether the settlement was “fair, reasonable, adequate and in the public interest.”
Sure he will do all in his power to squirm out of this one.
REUTERS-
Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein may be asked to testify in a market regulator’s insider-trading case against a former director of the Wall Street bank, a judge ruled.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Rajat Gupta, a former board member at Goldman and Procter & Gamble, of giving inside tips about the two companies to his friend Raj Rajaratnam in 2008 and 2009.
Get all these cases away from the regulators reach and into the hands of the people.
One by one they all will go down.
Seek the Truth.
AP-
A federal judge in New York has struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission, citing a need for truth about the financial markets.
Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the settlement Monday. The deal would have imposed penalties on Citigroup even as it allowed the company to deny allegations that it misled investors on a complex mortgage investment. The SEC has accused the bank of betting against the investment in 2007 and making $160 million, while investors lost millions.
The judge wrote that there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth about the financial markets. He set a July 16 trial date for the case.
Federal judge Jed Rakoff, a former prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s office here in New York, is fast becoming a sort of legal hero of our time. He showed that again yesterday when he shat all over the SEC’s latest dirty settlement with serial fraud offender Citigroup, refusing to let the captured regulatory agency sweep yet another case of high-level criminal malfeasance under the rug.
It won’t be fun for Citigroup Inc. and the Securities and Exchange Commission to defend their proposed $285 million settlement at a Wednesday court hearing ordered by a very skeptical federal judge.
WSJ-
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff could kill the deal if he doesn’t like what he hears.
But coming up with the proper penalties to end civil enforcement cases by the SEC is complicated.
SEC officials consider nine factors, including losses suffered by investors as a result of the alleged wrongdoing. The agency also weighs how much the company benefited from the behavior and whether investors will be …
Recent Comments