COMMENTARY
There is something deeply unsatisfactory with this story ... it leaves far too many questions unanswered.

To any ordinary person with a little bit of economics or accountancy training there is a huge disconnect between the dots ... some people have become very very wealthy on top of a corrupt and fraudulent system but are outside the reach of the law for some reason, and others who were rather modest cogs in the machine are getting caught up in the legal system.

There is no lack of law ... there is enough law to catch all sorts of law abiding citizens who get tripped up by something quite insignificant ... and enough law for those with expertise to navigate safely through all the loopholes that have been designed into the legal framework.

I have never been a 'high level' diplomat or international negotiator, but even at my level I was propositioned about having 'a law passed that would suit our business needs'. There was not ethical or moral questions raised about this possible transaction ... it was just business and money. Thiss was a very long time ago and overseas, but it was a little piece of my lifetime of schooling.
Peter Burgess

Ex-Credit Suisse Workers Said to Face Charges Over CDO Pricing

Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ex-Credit Suisse Group AG workers will be charged with intentionally mismarking prices of collateralized debt obligations and other securities, a person familiar with the matter said.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was also involved in the probe, said the person, who didn’t want to be named because the investigation isn’t public. Less than five people will be charged and Credit Suisse won’t be prosecuted, the person said.

Jerika Richardson, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, declined to comment yesterday on whether any charges would be filed. John Nester, an SEC spokesman, and Victoria Harmon, a Credit Suisse spokeswoman, also declined to comment.

On Feb. 19, 2008, Switzerland’s second-largest bank made a surprise announcement that it would take writedowns on asset- backed securities after finding “mismarkings” by a group of traders. The Zurich-based bank said a month later it would write down $2.65 billion after an internal review found the pricing errors on residential mortgage-backed bonds and collateralized debt obligations were made intentionally “by a small number” of traders who were then fired or suspended.

At the time the pricing errors were found, the Swiss bank hadn’t disclosed the names of the traders responsible.

The planned filing of charges against the former employees was reported earlier by Reuters.

--With assistance from Patricia Hurtado in New York and Joshua Gallu in Washington. Editors: Peter Blumberg, Dan Reichl To contact the reporter on this story: Dakin Campbell in San Francisco at dcampbell27@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net; Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net