Throughout the week over at Securities Docket, I highlight the most interesting columns and blog posts from around the web on the subjects of SEC enforcement and securities litigation. Here is a digest of my picks for the week ending April 2:

Let's go after the real culprits (Matthew Lynn, Sydney Morning Herald)The Sydney Morning Herald | April 1, 2010Insider trading cases are like London buses: You can wait for ages without seeing any at all. And then a whole bunch will come along at the same time. Last week, Britain's Financial Services Authority was pursuing two investigations into alleged insider-dealing rings. Earlier this month, prosecutors secured a rare prison sentence against a former stockbroker. Why now? For years, traders stood more risk of getting struck by lightning on the golf course than of being arrested for swapping a few share tips on the same fairways.

What Circle of Greed Can Tell Us About Plaintiff Strategies : Class Action Countermeasures (by Andrew Trask, Class Action Countermeasures)Class Action Countermeasures | April 1, 2010Over the last week, I provided a brief review of the new biography of disgraced (but largely successful) class-action plaintiff's lawyer William Lerach, and a discussion of some of his psychological quirks that one might encounter in some other plaintiffs' lawyers. Today, I'm closing out my discussion of Circle of Greed by looking at some of the strategies that class-action plaintiffs' lawyers employ that may not make it into reported cases.

The Pushover: Obama's choice to lead the SEC, Mary Schapiro, has some explaining to do (Eliot Spitzer, Slate)Slate | April 1, 2010This past year has not been a good one for the Securities and Exchange Commission and its chairman, Mary Schapiro. In September 2009, its settlement with Bank of America over executive bonuses was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff. (Rakoff approved a larger settlement in February.) Even more amazingly, in a case filed one month earlier, the SEC took the side of the investment banks in their effort to undo the consumer and investor protections built into one of the most important settlements of the past decade. Thankfully, once again, a federal judge rejected the SEC's efforts, calling it "contrary to the public interest." Only if one understands the history of this settlement and Mary Schapiro's involvement does any of this begin to make sense.

NAB Argued (Lyle Roberts, The 10b-5 Daily)The 10b-5 Daily | March 30, 2010Oral argument in the National Australia Bank case took place this morning. By all accounts, it does not appear that the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to embrace the broad extraterritorial application of the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. Already facing a tough battle, the petitioners could not have been happy to learn that in the Court's audience were several justices of the Supreme Court of Canada. And whether it was out of deference to their foreign guests, or genuine concern about the policy ramifications of allowing foreign investors access to the U.S. courts, the Court's questioning was hostile from the start.