These agencies, which have a lower bar to proving civil wrongdoing than do criminal authorities, are examining whether top executives misled investors about the firm's health and failed to protect customer money.
3. The Knesset's apolitical Legal Advisor Eyal Yinon has ruled that the law's broad definition of "boycotting the state of Israel", coupled with its "civil wrongdoing" or anyone-can-sue clause, may compromise freedom of expression where it comes to public debate over the fate of the West Bank.
He should form an interagency task force to investigate and pursue potential civil and criminal wrongdoing by institutions and people whose conduct in the mortgage chain had the greatest economic impact.
Mr. Fischetti has suggested, for example, that one reason Mr. Louima might have said there could have been four officers instead of two present during the assault was to have a stronger civil claim involving wrongdoing by more officers.
Fines in a criminal case aren't eligible, nor are civil cases involving wrongdoing other than insider trading–generally defined as the buying or selling of a security in breach of a fiduciary duty or relationship of trust while having material, nonpublic information about the security.
"If there's ambiguous circumstances and not a lot of clear evidence, or even conflicting evidence, it's not enough to get a conviction.... Their perspective is inherently political, since they're elected officials, and I think they feel it's easier to leave it to other mechanisms to deal with the wrongdoing, like civil suits for wrongful deaths, or federal suits for civil rights infractions".
Like Mr. Lay, several of his associates in R&C paid to settle civil litigation without acknowledging wrongdoing.
That entrenched S.E.C. practice — permitting defendants to settle civil claims without acknowledging wrongdoing — has come under increased scrutiny by the courts, a trend that legal experts say could lead the judge to question the settlement.
For their part, prosecutors have consistently balked at seeking criminal prosecutions of big banks and their senior executives, or even at extracting admissions of wrongdoing in civil settlements, even though deterrence and accountability are impossible without prosecutions and admissions.
To date, federal civil suits over mortgage wrongdoing have been narrowly focused and, at best, ended with settlements and fines that are a fraction of the profits made during the bubble.
