Posts Tagged ‘Wall Street’

JP Morgan’s $920 million fine

Matt Levine concludes that a large share of it was for making dumb trades, as opposed to intentional malfeasance. (Earlier on whether regulators had taken a bead on Morgan because of chief Jamie Dimon’s perceived bad attitude.) Will Morgan’s admissions materially help plaintiff’s lawyers in the inevitable shareholder class action? Don’t be so sure [Alison Frankel, Reuters] More: WSJ (sees politics), Hank Greenberg via FedSocBlog, Iain Murray.

“S&P: US lawsuit is ‘retaliation’ for ratings downgrade”

“Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) has claimed the lawsuit filed against it by the US Justice Department was ‘retaliation’ against its decision to downgrade the US’s credit rating.” [BBC; earlier here, here] My Cato colleague Mark Calabria, a specialist on banking and finance issues, sees a pattern at work in which businesses that make life hard for the government get hit with enforcement actions:

Maybe S&P can compare notes with Craig Zucker of Buckyballs fame.

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]

Judge: plaintiff’s bar leafs through WSJ each morning looking for scandal

“I mean, frankly, I am totally puzzled, given that plaintiffs’ bar in this area uses the Wall Street Journal as their source of clients and cases, right? You guys read it every day, looking for scandal, right? Other people read People Magazine, but you read the Wall Street Journal.” – Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald (S.D.N.Y.), during a proceeding on the LIBOR class actions. [Staci Zaretsky, Above the Law] “And in other news, the Sun rose today.” [@LawyerKitty]

December 4 roundup

  • Wendy Murphy brings her believe-the-accuser shtick to the University of Virginia [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus]
  • UK: foster parents in Rotherham might want to take care not to belong to the wrong political party [Telegraph]
  • “The Disappearance of Civil Trial in the United States” [John Langbein, Yale Law Journal & SSRN]
  • “Liability Is ‘Wrong’ Solution for Rating Agencies” [Mark Calabria, Cato at Liberty] Mere days later: “Sixth Circuit Rejects Ohio Pension Fund Suit Against Rating Agencies” [Adler]
  • “Yes, it is now illegal to be fully nude in San Francisco *unless you are in a parade*” [Lowering the Bar]
  • Once lionized in press: “Former Ohio AG Loses Law License for 6 Months Over Ethics Violations While In Office” [ABA Journal, Adler]
  • Facebook says it may go after some lawyers who’ve repped adversary Ceglia [Roger Parloff, Fortune]

Financial roundup

  • New York plaintiff wanders the South looking for ATMs out of compliance with federal fee sticker regulation [Kevin Funnell, Bank Lawyers’ Blog, earlier]
  • In the mail: Stephen Bainbridge, “Corporate Governance After the Financial Crisis” (Oxford, 2012), with blurb from NYT “Deal Professor” Steven Davidoff: “an important book for those seeking to understand the theoretical and practical implications of Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley, and the federal government’s foray into corporate regulation.”
  • American lawprof understandably unpopular trying to defend FATCA to the Swiss [TaxProf, earlier here, etc.]
  • Bank is trustee for mortgage holders, says loan servicers are responsible: “LA Files Big-Bucks Suit Against ‘Slumlord’ US Bank, Blames Lender for Condition of Foreclosed Homes” [ABA Journal]
  • “Swiss Banks Face ‘Slow Death’ As Foreign Powers Chase Undeclared Assets” [Giles Broom, Bloomberg/Business Insider]
  • “A comprehensive list of hyperinflations in history” [Steve Hanke/Nicholas Krus, PDF, via Ian Vasquez, Cato]
  • Warning: regs could “wipe out community banking industry by end of this decade” [Cam Fine, ICBA via Iain Murray]

“Plaintiffs’ lawyers to receive all the cash in Moody’s derivative settlement”

“Could the only cash payment so far from a credit rating agency in shareholder litigation stemming from the financial crisis go entirely to plaintiffs’ lawyers? It’s entirely possible, based on documents filed this week in consolidated shareholder derivative litigation against Moody’s.” [Nate Raymond, Reuters]