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Top Doc: Rakoff versus the SEC and BofA

By Ward Harkavy in Bankers, Documents, Featured, Regulation, SEC
Friday, Sep. 18 2009 @ 3:29PM

Federal judge Jed Rakoff's 12-page order filed last Monday formally rejecting the SEC's lame-ass settlement with Bank of America over the Merrill Lynch conniving is an instant classic. You heard about it; now read it.

Rolfe Winkler dished out an excellent report last month from inside Rakoff's courtroom as the judge hammered at both sides. Well worth checking out.

Here's just a taste of Rakoff's order itself:

"The proposed Consent Judgment in this case suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger; the Bank's management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators. And all this is done at the expense, not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth."

Top Doc: The SEC, By Definition, Is a Piss-Poor Prosecutor, So Let DOJ Do It

By Ward Harkavy in Documents, Featured, Madoff, Regulation, SEC
Thursday, Sep. 17 2009 @ 2:20PM

Hot off the server from Wayne State University's law school is Peter Henning's "Should the SEC Spin Off the Enforcement Division?" Amid all the whining about the SEC, this is a question that has so far eluded most of the press — I mean, the question itself has, let alone any debate or discussion.

peter henning180.jpg
Law prof Henning, a white-collar-crime maven, raises the question about whether the Justice Department ought to take over the prosecutorial part of the SEC, its enforcement division — which, as we know, doesn't do that good a job enforcing.

I like the way the guy cuts through the bullshit swirling around the SEC to get to the point of how the SEC dropped the ball on the Madoff caper — and how that is a problem stemming from the very nature of the SEC and thus will happen again and again and again.

Continue reading "Top Doc: The SEC, By"...