Item — HN Reader

this is pretty instructive:

CARY LEAHEY, SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR, DECISION ECONOMICS, NEW YORK:

"The SEC has come out swinging, going after the biggest, most recognized name on Wall Street with regard to alleged abuses in the credit derivatives market. This will be a difficult case to prove, particularly to the laymen on the jury, as even supposed experts on Wall Street with years of experience in this area are still scratching their heads trying to figure out who did what to whom and when."

1 comments

1) Create hand-picked collections of assets a favored investor wants to bet large sums against.

2) Sell those packages as investments to other clients, with clear statements that they were chosen by independent parties.

Doesn't sound too difficult to prove to me.

It's easy to phrase it that way, hard to prove (to a legally sufficient degree) that that phrasing is correct.

Hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, maybe. But this is a civil case, and I believe the standard is merely by a preponderance of the evidence.