White Collar Roundup - April 2012

A Stay with a Touch of Sass

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted a stay of the proceedings in the case between the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Southern District of New York Judge Jed S. Rakoff previously refused to approve the parties' proposed consent judgment, claiming it was not fair, adequate, reasonable or in the public interest. In granting the stay, the per curiam opinion noted, "[a] still more significant problem is that the court does not appear to have given deference to the S.E.C.'s judgment on wholly discretionary matters of policy." While the court did not rule on the merits of the case, this opinion bodes well for the SEC and Citigroup.