Well, that's one take

[giandujakiss]

Goldman's Grand Delusions Hit Reality

At least for one day, after years of milquetoast responses to financial depredations, the Securities and Exchange Commission finally can boast that it’s doing God’s work again.

Here’s the real beauty of the SEC’s settlement agreement yesterday with Goldman Sachs. The next time Goldman Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein goes on television and is asked by some reporter if Goldman committed securities fraud, as the SEC alleged, he won’t be allowed to say no.

Here's another:

Goldman Agrees to Carry On As Usual

My favorite part of the SEC settlement with Goldman Sachs is the bit where Goldman agrees to “a permanent injunction from violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933″. Well, that’s reassuring, knowing that from now on Goldman has promised not to break the law. Goldman has also consented to an agreement that when it puts together new mortgage securities, it’ll run any prospectuses or term sheets by its legal or compliance departments. As if it wasn’t doing that already. And there’s lots more like that: people on the mortgage desk have to attend training seminars on disclosure! Goldman “shall provide for appropriate record keeping”! And so on and so forth.

The only bit of possible embarrassment still left for Goldman is the litigation against Fabrice Tourre, which is ongoing. I find that peculiar, since Tourre was pretty junior, and the people responsible for him behaving correctly all seem to be home safe. I’m not sure what the SEC thinks it might achieve with continued litigation against Tourre, or whether Goldman now feels that it can safely hang the poor chap out to dry. But this story has always been about Goldman’s actions, not Tourre’s. And it would be unfair, to say the least, if Tourre bore the brunt of the punishment, while Goldman gets away with little more than writing a check which barely makes a dent in its vast cash pile.

And yet, that's exactly what will happen. And you heard it here first for the zillionth time, but that's what will happen with BP - some lower level rig operator will be criminally prosecuted while the officers of the company who created the reckless atmosphere will stay untouched.

(To be fair, the reason the SEC got an agreement from Goldman not to violate the law - which is a standard move but also sometimes frowned upon by judges - is that this way, if Goldman does violate the law, it's in contempt as well as just guilty of violating the law, which means there are extra penalties. If, of course, the SEC were to bring an action in the first place, which ... well, I remain skeptical.)

More on Goldman here.

Comments

[ratcreature]

If they could they would just dress some hapless unpaid intern who happened to be there up as scapegoat to be responsible for everything....

[giandujakiss]

They totally would. And the SEC would prosecute - easy to do.