Missouri Lawyers Media Missouri legal news and public notices

Of this we can be fairly confident: There is nothing in JPMorgan's admissions that would be damaging to the company. JPMorgan's attorneys can be proud.

Hardly a week goes by without a new report about a government investigation of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and how much money the bank might have to pay because of some alleged violation of the law.

Tagged with: JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The Justice Department accused Bank of America Corp. this week of defrauding Wachovia Corp. and the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco in a 2008 mortgage-bond deal. Here’s the funny part: Neither one has claimed it was defrauded by Bank of America in the transaction.

There are few easy wins for the government in high-profile trials of white-collar defendants.

It’s one thing to blow your reputation by slapping AAA ratings on all sorts of garbage subprime-mortgage bonds. It only makes it worse to go into court years later and argue that your most cherished values are, for legal purposes, a bunch of smoke.

Tagged with: Standard & Poor

Eric Holder has said he doesn’t know if he will stay on as U.S. attorney general, now that President Barack Obama has been re-elected. Here’s something to help them decide: A story about how the Justice Department got caught fudging its numbers on financial-fraud prosecutions — again.

Never underestimate the government’s capacity for incompetence when it comes to overseeing large financial institutions. The latest example: an ill-advised consulting contract between Freddie Mac’s outside auditor and the federal agency in charge of running the company.

Here’s an unsettling fact for anyone thinking of ever buying shares in a newly public company: Even if its executives know their internal accounting systems are a wreck, they aren’t required to disclose this until after the company goes public.

So many times when the big credit-rating companies have embarrassed themselves, the world has sighed and chalked it up to a business model that by design invites corruption and incompetence. Perhaps never before have the public’s expectations for the industry been lower.

There’s a simple explanation for why the world’s zombie banks remain so reluctant to write off worthless assets and tap the equity markets for fresh capital. They don’t want to end up like UniCredit.

If you happen to be a connoisseur of accounting scandals, then the past month or so has been about as good as it gets, capped by the unfolding disaster at Olympus Corp.