WSJ on October Bent, Reserve Trial
Today's Wall Street Journal writes "'Broken' Fund Shifts the Blame", which says, "Nearly four years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. "broke the buck" at his money-market mutual fund, Bruce R. Bent is blaming the U.S. government. The 75-year-old Mr. Bent and his son, Bruce Bent II, are set to go on trial in October on civil charges of misleading investors, ratings firms and trustees of the Reserve Primary fund as it wobbled in September 2008. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that the two men falsely claimed they would prop up the fund's $1 net asset value even though they "secretly harbored" doubts. The two Bents have denied the allegations in the SEC's civil lawsuit ever since it was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2009.... As both sides prepared for trial, lawyers for the Bents sprang a surprise. They told the judge that jurors should be allowed to hear about the government's refusal to bail out Lehman, criticism of the SEC's record in other crisis-related cases and potentially awkward emails." In other news, ICI's latest "Money Market Mutual Fund Assets" says, "Total money market mutual fund assets increased by $11.76 billion to $2.574 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 15, the Investment Company Institute reported today." Over the past 3 weeks, money fund assets have increased by $19 billion. Year-to-date, money fund assets are down by $121 billion, or 4.5%.
