The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took over five years to bring action against a broker-dealer that aided a hedge fund illegally shorting NASDAQ listed companies.
The longer negative exposure remains, even if totally unfounded, the more your reputation can be damaged, and the more difficult the effort needed for reversal.
Naked Shorts are still a problem. Like a fox guarding the hen house, it should be no surprise that favoritism and abuse are enabled by a lack of enforcement by the SEC.
The US Government successfully, yet wrongly, convicted Michael Quiel on one charge (Quiel was found not guilty on everything else) - the government lied during testimony to get the jury to believe them. Now, the government wants Tax Money it was never owed.
