The unofficial judicial watchdog of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Southern District Judge Jed Rakoff, again has blasted the agency over a settlement in which defendants are not required to admit wrongdoing.
On Monday, Judge Rakoff issued a 12-page ruling approving the SEC’s $3 million stock options backdating and accounting fraud settlement with Vitesse Semiconductor and two of its executives. But echoing his complaints in the SEC’s action against Bank of America last year, the judge also issued a warning about future SEC settlements in which defendants neither admit nor deny wrongdoing.
