U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, one of the New York judges emerging as heroes of the financial crisis, today overturned a contentious settlement the SEC made with Bank of America last month, in which the bank agreed to pay $33 million to the government agency to settle charges that it had lied about bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives after acquiring the firm last year without confirming or denying said charges. Actually, Rakoff didn’t just overturn it. He straight up smacked that bitch upside the head.
The settlement, he said, “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.”
Then he dropped some Oscar Wilde on the SEC’s ass:
The judge quoted Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan” in the end of his ruling to say that a cynic is someone “who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Yeah! How do like them apples?
Judge Rejects Settlement Over Merrill Bonuses [NYT]
Earlier: Meet the New York Judges in Charge of Smacking Down Wall Street
Then he dropped some Oscar Wilde on the SEC’s ass:
The judge quoted Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan” in the end of his ruling to say that a cynic is someone “who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Yeah! How do like them apples?
Judge Rejects Settlement Over Merrill Bonuses [NYT]
Earlier: Meet the New York Judges in Charge of Smacking Down Wall Street
