To all of you who have been in and out of the office these past few weeks (mainly out), here is my video countdown of the top 5 main things you missed. Welcome back!

5. On Sept. 2, Judge Shira Scheindlin of the SDNY ruled that the ratings of certain securities that were distributed to a limited number of investors were not entitled to the same free-speech protection as more general ratings of corporate bonds that were widely disseminated. The free speech defense has been a bullet-proof defense for credit agencies for years, so this decision is said to be ground-breaking.

4. In mid-August, Judge Jed Rakoff put the settlement between the SEC and Bank of America on hold, saying that he wanted to review additional information from the parties as to "who knew what" and when. He received that information on August 24, and let’s just say he was not impressed. The gist of the new information he received from the SEC was that the SEC couldn’t pinpoint who knew what because the BofA executives relied on advice from their lawyers, which was protected by the attorney-client privilege. Judge Rakoff said this explanation made no sense because the culpability of the executives and the company counsel would remain beyond scrutiny, and he ordered the parties to submit additional and final submissions by Sept. 9.

3. After months of arguing with Madoff victims about the proper formula by which they should be paid by SIPC, bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard has asked the court to decide this issue. Picard would like the court to use a “cash in/cash out” method but the victims argue that the proper formula should be based on the fictional amounts reflected on their Nov. 30, 2008, account statements.

2. Nothing good has happened for Allen Stanford in weeks. In the last few weeks, the Fifth Circuit ruled that he must stay in jail until trial, his motion to remove a “hostile” judge was denied, his attorneys cannot get paid and have moved to withdraw from the case, his CFO pleaded guilty to three felony counts and may now be cooperating with the prosecutors, and he was rushed to the hospital with a racing pulse that was due to an aneurism in his leg.

and finally...

1. On September 2, the SEC’s Inspector General David Kotz released an Executive Summary of his 455-page report documenting how and why the SEC failed to detect the Madoff fraud. The full report was released by the SEC on Friday, September 4, just before the long holiday weekend. The report provides detailed information on how the SEC completely failed on numerous occasions to stop Madoff, going back to 1992. The Senate has set up what should be a very interesting hearing on the report on September 10 featuring Kotz, Harry Markopolos, and SEC Enforcement Director Khuzami.