When Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote skeptically about the $75 million proposed settlement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission, arguing that the people who would pay were "Citigroup's shareholders — the same people who were arguably defrauded by its failure to disclose its exposure to subprime mortgages in the first place," we flagged it here as "intriguing."
Now, the Wall Street Journal reports, a federal judge, Ellen Segal Huvelle, a Clinton appointee, has declined to approve the settlement, asking the SEC, as the Journal puts it, "why Citigroup shareholders should have to pay for the alleged sins of bank executives."
Excellent question.