B of A II – Return to Rakoff

OK, is it just me, or didn’t Judge Rakoff in the SEC v. B of A action just tell everyone (in an opinion the Washington Post charitably called “a scathing critique“)  that the earlier proposed settlement “is not fair, first and foremost, because it does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality, in that it proposes that the shareholders who were the victims of the Bank’s alleged misconduct now pay the penalty for that misconduct.”

That was at $33 million.  So 2009 Judge.  Now the new proposal is to do the same thing at $150 million?  Huh?  Doesn’t that just make it 5 times worse?  Oh Boy.  If I know Judge Rakoff, and I don’t — but my co-counsel and former colleague Dave Brower and I did split the oral argument in the In re Merrill Lynch Deriv. Litig. action in front of him last year — so I know exactly how serious he can be.

Columbia’s John Coffee told the New York Law Journal that “the difference might be that the judge’s concern about ‘accountability will now be addressed by someone else’ — the state’s attorney general,” who brought his own lawsuit today.  That hardly seems reason to approve the settlement if you ask me.

All I can say is maybe an “Unopposed Agreed Joint Pretty Please With A Cherry On Top We Really Need to Do This Motion to Approve the Proposed Settlement” is in order.