The Prosecution That Isn’t Happening
By James Kwak People keep asking why no senior executive has gone to jail for the misdeeds that produced the financial crisis—and cost the United States more than $6 trillion, or $50,000 per household,...
View ArticleUnequal Justice
By James Kwak If I write about a legal matter on this blog, it usually involves battalions of attorneys on each side, months of motions, briefs, and hearings, and legal fees easily mounting into the...
View Article“Telling a lie does not make you guilty of a federal crime”
By James Kwak That’s what Jesse Litvak’s lawyer said at the start of his trial earlier today. And technically speaking, it’s true. If you’re trying to sell a bond to a client, and during the course of...
View ArticleMore on Wasting Shareholders’ Money
By James Kwak A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my most recent “academic” paper, on the issue of whether corporate political contributions might constitute a breach of insiders’ fiduciary duty...
View ArticleMore Pseudo-Contrarianism
By James Kwak I accidentally glanced at the link to David Brooks’s recent column and—oh my god, is it stupid. You may want to stop reading right here to avoid being exposed to it. Basically, Brooks...
View ArticleThe Absurdity of Fifth Third
By James Kwak No, I’m not talking about the fact that a major bank is named Fifth Third Bank. (As a friend said, why would you trust your money to a bank that seems not to understand fractions?) I’m...
View ArticleWhat Might Have Been . . .
By James Kwak I was reading the plea deal in the SAC case, which was approved by the judge yesterday, and then I started reading the criminal indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. What I...
View ArticleDefending Kickbacks
By James Kwak The Wall Street Journal reports that the SEC will soon decide (well, sometime this year) whether brokers should be subject to a fiduciary standard in their dealings with clients, as...
View ArticleThe “Chicken(expletive) Club”
By James Kwak Update: See notes in bold below. The only “Wall Street” “executive” to go to jail for the financial crisis was Kareem Serageldin, the head of a trading desk at Credit Suisse, according to...
View ArticleIs Credit Suisse Really in Jail?
By James Kwak Credit Suisse’s guilty plea to a charge of tax fraud seems to be a major step forward for a Justice Department that was satisfied both before and after the financial crisis with toothless...
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Why Justice Is So Rare
By James Kwak Today was a victory for justice. In Foster v. Chatman—a case brought by the Southern Center for Human Rights and argued by death penalty super-lawyer Stephen Bright—the Supreme Court...
View ArticleAnd the Award for Best Financial Crisis Book …
… goes to Chain of Title, by David Dayen (with apologies to Jennifer Taub, Alyssa Katz, Michael Lewis, and many others, including my co-author, Simon Johnson). Chain of Title isn’t primarily about the...
View ArticleEconomism and the Law
By James Kwak Economism—the simplistic, unreflecting application of Economics 101 models to complex, real-world issues—is particularly influential in the law, including both legal academia and actual...
View ArticleThe Right to Have Rights
By James Kwak There’s a story you hear often these days. The story is that America has too many lawsuits: too many lawyers, too many people filing frivolous suits, too many excessive damages awards by...
View ArticleEconomism and Arbitration Clauses
By James Kwak As banking scandals go, Wells Fargo opening millions of new accounts for existing customers so that it could pump up its cross-selling metrics for investors is about as clear-cut as it...
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