Posts Tagged ‘accounting’

COVID-19 pandemic roundup

  • “However peaceable we might be in our intentions, our assembling is a physical threat. Our judgments about liberty, I think, need to reflect that.” [Eugene Volokh on freedom of assembly during an epidemic] Suits against quarantine seldom prevail [Chris Dolmetsch and Malathi Nayak, Bloomberg/Claims Journal] Quarantine and public health measures set important precedents in overcoming judges’ suspicion of delegations of power [Keith Whittington]
  • If the federal government decided it wanted to block movement between different states to combat virus transmission, where would it get the legal authority, and what means could it lawfully use? [Gene Healy, Cato] The constitutional background on freedom to travel, as well as search and seizure, during an epidemic [Volokh]
  • “The common law also appears not to be a good alternative. One can imagine the litigation nightmare if everyone who got the virus attempted to identify and sue some defendant for damages.” [Tim Brennan, Truth on the Market]
  • Cracking down on putatively deceptive accounting practices, SEC penalized “‘bill-and-hold’ transaction orders in which a product is not immediately delivered to its customer.” And that was terrible news for anyone in the business of trying to build public health stockpiles — of vaccines, equipment, PPE — that might be needed in a contagious-disease emergency [John Berlau, CEI] Better than compulsory purchase orders: “Using Purchase Guarantees and Targeted Deregulation to Boost Production of Essential Medical Equipment” [Caleb Watney and Alec Stapp, Mercatus Center]
  • Flashpoints include drive-in services, curfews, ID and quarantine of churchgoers: “Religious Freedom Clashes With Public Health Enforcers” [Elizabeth Nolan Brown]
  • “FDA Denaturing Rules Are Toxic for Small Distillers” [Jacob Grier]

Occupational licensure roundup

Banking and finance roundup

  • “The real-world impact of Dodd-Frank, stress tests and other regs” [M&T Bank slideshow, American Banker] “Six feet of new mortgage regulations help explain slower housing market” [Ira Stoll]
  • Will Trump administration allow banking for cannabis-related businesses? [Kevin Funnell]
  • “‘Sustainability Standards’ Open A Pandora’s Box Of Politically Correct Accounting” [Howard Husock and Jim Copland]
  • An assumption of complete transparency would take away “the reason for financial intermediation in the first place” [Arnold Kling]
  • Statutes of repose in securities actions are important in protecting interests on both sides [WLF on CalPERS v. ANZ Securities, Inc.]
  • Encrypted messaging services allow Wall Streeters to bypass all sorts of regulatory scrutiny and speak freely, can’t have that [Bloomberg]

“Our now ironically named Department of Justice”

On July 24 Cato held a book forum on Sidney Powell’s new book, “Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice” (earlier). Participants included the author Sidney Powell, with comments by Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; and Ronald Weich, Dean, University of Baltimore Law School. My colleague Tim Lynch, who directs Cato’s work on criminal justice issues, moderated. From the description:

In Licensed to Lie, attorney Sidney Powell takes readers through a series of disturbing events, missteps, and cover-ups in our federal criminal justice system. According to Powell, the malfeasance stretches across all three branches of our government — from the White House to the U.S. Senate, to members of the judiciary. Even worse, the law itself is becoming pernicious. Americans can now be prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for actions that are not crimes. And if acquitted, there is no recourse against prosecutors who hid evidence vital to the defense.

Powell gives a detailed account of the prosecution and imprisonment of individual executives of well-known firms such as Merrill Lynch based on creative new theories of criminal liability, following dubious prosecutorial conduct including the withholding of evidence favorable to the defense, so-called Brady violations.

July 14 roundup

  • Does new Obama directive gut 1996 welfare reform law? [Mickey Kaus (“in 2008, Barack Obama didn’t dare suggest that he wanted to do what he has done today”), Bader]
  • Ringling Bros. v. animal rights activists: court throws out champerty claim, allows racketeering claim to proceed [BLT]
  • Iqbal, Twombly, and Lance Armstrong [DeadSpin, Howard Wasserman/Prawfs and more]
  • Abuse claims: “Retain the statute of limitations” [New Jersey Law Journal editorial] Insurance costs squeeze NYC social services working with kids, elderly [NYDN]
  • Court upholds sanctions vs. “staggering chutzpah” copyright lawyer Evan Stone [Paul Alan Levy, Eugene Volokh, earlier here and here]
  • Court says board members of NYC apartment co-ops can be sued personally over alleged bias [Reuters]
  • “FASB retreats from disastrous litigation disclosure requirement proposal” [Alison Frankel, Reuters via PoL, earlier]

August 26 roundup

June 30 roundup

Bernard Madoff and Milberg Weiss, cont’d

A week ago I briefly noted that now-imprisoned securities class action king Mel Weiss appeared on the list of Bernard Madoff victims (163-pp. PDF courtesy WSJ, via Christopher Fountain) and observed how ironic it seemed that someone who made great claims to expertise in sniffing out stock fraud should have been taken in by it.

According to correspondence from New York securities lawyer (and longtime Weiss critic) Howard Sirota, however, there might be to the story than that:

I wouldn’t be so quick to jump to the conclusion that Mel Weiss [fouled] up investing with Madoff.

Weiss’ wife and son Stephen A. Weiss invested with Madoff, as did [Milberg Weiss partners] David Bershad and Pat Hynes.

In addition, convicted serial Milberg plaintiff Howard Vogel invested with Madoff.

Buchbinder Tunick, Milberg’s accountants and ironically Milberg’s principal forensic accounting experts, appear on the list, although the entries may be clients of the Buchbinder firm.

Class action firms Wolf Popper and Wolf Haldenstein also appear.

Sirota believes that other persons and entities on the Madoff victims list have also served as lead plaintiffs in securities litigation or as plaintiffs in other litigation handled by class-action firms. All of which could be mere coincidence, or could suggest that either Madoff himself or others in his circle might have played some role in funneling lead plaintiffs to the class-action bar. (Particularly in the “race to the courthouse” era that preceded the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, having a stable of cooperative repeat plaintiffs was vital to the success of many plaintiff’s firms.)

One way to check this thesis, Sirota suggests, would be to check the names on the Madoff victims list against those on the list of plaintiffs maintained by the Stanford Law School securities class action clearinghouse to see whether there are any other noteworthy matches and if so whether they follow any particular pattern. He also asks whether some of the law firms that have been organizing task forces to recruit and represent plaintiffs in the Madoff scandals — they include the Milberg firm and Wolf Haldenstein — have adequately disclosed to potential clients in their literature that their firms’ own names figure on the Madoff victims list. More: Gary Weiss, Larry Ribstein.

Further: Yet more views. And in comments, a visitor says Wolf Haldenstein is on the list because clients of the firm invested with Madoff, not because the firm itself did.