Goldman Sachs Gets the SEC Kiss of Death

April 18, 2010 10:00am by Barry Ritholtz

Here’s a little “inside baseball” stuff.

Sam Antar, the former CFO of Crazy Eddies who now specializes in training investigators how to uncover White Collar Fraud, noted the significance of a Friday SEC Complaint:

“The SEC filed the lawsuit on Friday without giving Goldman the heads up.

When a company receives a surprise subpoena or a lawsuit on a Friday, it is known as the “kiss of death” from the SEC. (I received my first SEC subpoena on a Friday afternoon, back in the day). It is meant to ruin your weekend plans (yes, the SEC can get personal in its own way), since your lawyers usually don’t work weekends.

Goldman compounded its problem by putting out a misleading press release contesting the SEC’s charges. That press release can be the basis for later 10b-5 violations, if the SEC wins its case against Goldman.

Goldman should not engage in a public debate on this issue, if they want to avoid being baited by the SEC.

Fascinating stuff . . .

UPDATE: April 19, 2010 6:21am

The WSJ is reporting that GS was blindsided by lawsuit

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