Judges Punish Wall Street As Regulators Just Talk About Reform

In their September 8 article in Bloomberg News, Cary O’Reilly and Linda Sandler write that “[A]s the White House and Congress debate how to regulate financial crisis, judges have assumed the point position of punishing Wall Street for causing the worst recession since the 1930s.” O’Reilly and Sandler point out that while the executive and legislative branches of government continue to discuss the possibilities of implementing various reforms as a response to the financial crisis that began approximately a year ago, “judges are [actually] taking the first steps toward the same goal, punishing executives and issuing rulings with national impact.” In their article O’Reilly and Sandler go on to enumerate specific examples of how some judges have proceeded along this path.