Finally, a judge stands up to Wall Street

I agree this shouldn't be posted on HN but just to clarify. My issue with this article is it doesn't spell out the law behind the case. If the SEC doesn't think they can win a case against Citigroup and they were settling to impose whatever punishment they could then this judge isn't a hero at all. In fact he'll be facilitating Citigroup by letting them get away with this completely.

By not telling us what law Citigroup violated and giving us the language in the law so we can make our own judgment this article prevents us from discussing the issue intellectually. Which makes it just an emotional argument and hence inappropriate for HN

Summary: Details how Citigroup almost got away with paying a $125M fine for defrauding its customers $700M.

"The amazing thing about the wave of corruption that has overtaken the financial services industry is that most of it couldn’t happen without virtually every player at every level signing off on these deals. From the ratings agencies to the law firms to the accounting firms to the regulators to the bank executives themselves, everybody had to be on board in order for a lot of these fraud schemes to work.

"Judges are a part of that picture, and too often, members of the bench sign off on dirty deals made between banks and regulators when the law says that such settlements must be “fair, reasonable, adequate and in the public interest.”

Edit: changed Bank of America to Citigroup. Wrong bank.

1. Politics

2. Editorialising

3. Inaccurate in its implications (what, no judge has ever "stood up to Wall Street", whatever that means, before?)

4. From Rolling Stone, and not on the subject of music.