Bond Traders Can Lie to Customers Again

Yesterday Jesse Litvak—the former Jefferies Group LLC mortgage-backed securities trader who was convicted of defrauding clients, got his conviction reversed, was convicted again, and went to prison—got his conviction reversed again. Litvak, remember, was a mortgage-bond trader who would buy bonds from one customer, sell them to another customer, and lie to one or both customers about the price he was getting on the other side. Litvak canvassed the interest in those bonds from his customers, and had one customer—Brian Norris at Invesco Ltd.—who wanted to buy a particular bond on the list.