July 3, 2009

"2009 Mid-Year Review - Securities Litigation and Enforcement"

Securities Docket is presenting a webcast at 2 p.m. Eastern July 9 with panelists Kevin LaCroix (D&O Diary); Tom Gorman (SEC Actions) Francine McKenna (re: the Auditors); and Lyle Roberts (10b-5 Daily).

July 2, 2009

Madoff sentencing: "A retiree who spoke at the rally"

That's how the New York Times described attorney Helen Davis Chaitman, but Christopher Fountain, looking into the matter, finds that description less than adequate.

Also, Joseph Nocera in the Times on Madoff-victim compensation: "the government is not in the business of reimbursing for robberies".

June 26, 2009

"Short Sighted Attack on Short Selling"

Prof. Bainbridge doesn't think much of attempts to revive an old bogey for financial crises.

June 10, 2009

Cincinnati strong-arms mortgage lenders

One highlight: "The City filed criminal charges against the bank [for not cleaning up an apartment building it had lent on] even though the bank didn't accept title to the property." [Kevin Funnell, Bank Lawyer's Blog]

Bank of America advancing Mozilo's defense expenses

And well it should, according to Kevin LaCroix.

June 8, 2009

Controls on Wall Street pay

After the not-unexpected bad news for bailed-out institutions -- yes, Washington will be controlling their top earners' pay -- comes this third paragraph in the Times account, which can be taken for the really newsy one (emphasis added):

[Other federal rules,] which are being described as broad principles, would set standards that the government would like the entire financial industry to observe as banks and other companies compensate their highest-paid executives, though it is not clear how stringent regulators will make them.

More: Megan McArdle.

June 7, 2009

Sotomayor and securities litigation

Christine Hurt, and Steve Bainbridge, do not detect any noticeable overall tilt toward (or against) plaintiffs in her rulings on private securities litigation. More: Mary Eaton and Roger Netzer, Securities Docket.

June 5, 2009

"The Peculiar Problem of 'Peekaboo'"

Jonathan Rauch on the anomalous, perhaps unconstitutional, status of the Sarbanes-Oxley law's Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Holman Jenkins on myths of the financial crisis

Mortgage securitization wasn't just a way for Wall Street to fob off risk on naive investors; big firms on the Street loaded up on the unsound bonds for their own holdings. The designers of the new mortgage tools didn't think housing prices could only go up. Executive compensation practices weren't just a "heads we win, tails you lose" game. And more [Hoover Policy Review via Business Insider]

More: In an energetic response, Felix Salmon says "Jenkins's attempts to let Wall Street off lightly simply don't hold water"; Wall Street firms never expected to eat as much of their own dog food as they wound up having to, the structure of securitization discouraged fundamental analysis of what widespread defaults would do, and the perversities of compensation are not limited to problems of inadequate "skin in the game" (or to executives as such, given the central role of traders).

May 22, 2009

"We have to terrorize these bankers"

Your federal tax dollars at work, $34.5 million worth, at NACA (Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America).