Posted by: Bruce Lefavi in investment on Jul 23, 2009
Why is the Justice Department so incredibly inept at prosecuting securities fraud? The reason is they don't have anyone devoted to prosecuting these cases. In fact, there is not a single attorney in the entire Justice Department that is trained in the area of securities. Should a case come up, that they might want to prosecute, they'd probably have to look up the word securities in the dictionary to see what it means.
This is a completely untenable situation. It is imperative for the Justice Department to have its own division devoted exclusively to securities, set up with the best attorneys they can get their hands on. We know that the big firms are going to try and hire the best of the best to defend them so, it is time to even the playing field.
How are they going to do that? I believe that the best way to do that, again like what I said regarding the SEC, is to go out to the private sector, hire the best people as outside consultants to work on given cases. In an even fight, and with the right people on their side, I am confident that the Justice Department would have a pretty good chance at getting the job done.