Rakoff's rejection praised

Washington Post business writer Steve Pearlstein channels some Modest Proposal-style irony and delivers a funny and incisive take  on Judge Rakoff’s rejection of the SEC/BofA settlement.  It is very unkind to the lawyers:

 [I]t should be obvious that this is a flagrant case of judicial overreaching.

A trial? Does Rakoff expect the $750-an-hour lawyers at Cleary Gottlieb to actually go into court and try a case on behalf of the bank rather than simply string things along with endless motions and depositions until they wear down the other side?

And what does fairness -- or as Rakoff defined it, "elementary notions of justice and morality" -- have to do with securities law? Hasn't he learned that securities law is supposed to be about the triumph of form over substance, about generating endless paperwork for lawyers while giving shareholders the illusion of knowing what management is up to?

Pearlstein has just wrapped an online discussion with readers at the WaPo site.  It includes calls for the disbarment of Wachtell partners and a joke from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

                                                                    -posted by brian