Banking and finance roundup

  • After bank burglarizes Ohio woman, law will give her curiously little satisfaction [Popehat]
  • North Las Vegas scheme to seize underwater mortgages through eminent domain raises constitutional opposition [Kevin Funnell]
  • “The SAC Insider Trading Indictment” [Bainbridge, WSJ MoneyBeat]
  • “He who sells what isn’t his’n/Must buy it back or go to prison.” Most naked short selling driven by fundamentals, study says [Daniel Fisher]
  • NY AG Schneiderman to Thomson Reuters: don’t you dare sell early access to the market-moving survey you pay for [Bainbridge]
  • “The Confidential Witness Problem in Securities Litigation” [Kevin LaCroix]
  • “The puzzling return of Glass-Steagall” [Tabarrok]
  • “FATCA: How to Lose Friends, Citizens and Influence” [Colleen Graffy, WSJ via Paul Caron/TaxProf, earlier]

4 Comments

  • >After bank burglarizes Ohio woman, law will give her curiously little satisfaction [Popehat]

    Ken may have jumped the gun here. Several commenters on his blog have noted a lack of criminal intent. The police determined who was responsible for removing the victim’s property and how it was disposed of; demands that they arrest someone, anyone, remind me of a certain other criminal prosecution that is only beginning to fade from the headlines.

    But will the civil justice system offer full satisfaction for a serious civil wrong? If the bank official is obtuse enough to try to nickel and dime the victim of his gross negligence, a jury should have the chance to whack him on the side of the head with substantial punitive damages.

    My concurrence with the civil justice argument assumes that the bank holds sufficient assets and insurance to pay for their blunders. Officials of an insolvent outfit unable or unwilling to cover their blunders should be treated like burglars.

  • I have run into similar problems as the Ohio woman. What she is doing wrong is talking to people. Those who are middle class do not understand that you don’t talk, you write. Go to the police station and file a complaint against the agents of the bank, not the bank. The police have to act on this. If they don’t, then go to the mayor and others and make life very difficult for every politician. Then get a lawyer and sue the bank. They don’t have a leg and likely have even violated constitutional protections. But you don’t talk on the phone and you don’t expect anyone to do anything until they get paper.

  • Re: david7134, if you read the article on Popehat, you’ll note she’s *been* to the police, who consider the matter closed. I won’t comment further on what that says about local LE not wanting to offend local business.

    At this point, what her lawyer might want to/should do is get in front of the judge on the foreclosure of the *right* house and get some lien/stay/etc put on the proceedings until Ms. Barnett is made right. *That* would stick the bank in its bottom line where it might get off its corporate backside and address the problem realistically.

    I expect the local Bank president is now fully aware of the term “Streisand effect”.

  • […] taxpayers, see Ilya Somin [more, yet more] Other commentary: Matt Welch, Richard Epstein. Earlier here, here, etc. […]