SAC Capital’s Guilty Plea Makes Old Deal Look Silly

Now that SAC Capital Advisors LP has reached its criminal-plea deal with federal prosecutors, it's worth taking a moment to look back on the hedge fund's civil settlement earlier this year with the Securities and Exchange Commission and what an awful charade it was in one crucial respect.

In March, the commission struck a $616 million pact with Steven A. Cohen's hedge fund to resolve claims of insider trading. Most importantly, it let SAC neither admit nor deny the agency's allegations -- which looks especially dumb now, considering that SAC just agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges and pay $1.8 billion. (Actually, the penalty is more like $1.2 billion, because prosecutors said they would give the hedge fund credit for the $616 million in the earlier accord.)