Give it up for this judge

Add comment September 14th, 2009

For any of us cynical enough to believe that the deals among the feds, Bank of America’s corporate folks and the old Merrill Lynch just have that “off” smell, today’s decision by a U.S. District court judge ought to make us applaud.

Someone, it appears, might be looking out for justice. Here’s a quote from the Associated Press story just posted:

“U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff held up his approval of the settlement, however, and ordered the SEC last month to explain why it didn’t pursue charges against specific executives at Bank of America over the accusations.

“Rakoff, in his ruling, found that the settlement “suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the SEC 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.”

And, so now, it’s off to court. Rakoff did what no one else appears to have been willing to do: Make the “suits” account for what they’ve been doing. Sure, it’ll take forever to wind through the court system, but at least, this time, someone with some power said: Explain yourself.