A judge ordered Fabrice Tourre, a former Goldman Sachs trader at the center of a troubled mortgage deal, to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) $825,000 in penalties and other costs, The New York Times reported yesterday. The sum fell short of the roughly $1 million payout that the agency had requested. The ruling, a capstone to one of the SEC’s most prominent Wall Street cases and its first significant courtroom victory stemming from the financial crisis, was equal parts validation and leverage for an agency that has threatened harsher penalties and fewer settlements. The case could signal to Wall Street employees, with all their legal resources, that the agency is willing to take them on and that it just might win, even though the agency has lost five of its last 12 trials. In addition, the recent losses have raised questions about the costs of a trial, which can take several weeks and drain resources from the SEC.
