Macaskill on markets: Goldman pins hopes on the Orient Express defence

The SEC fraud suit against Goldman Sachs has shone a spotlight on the exploitation of the useful idiots at the heart of the credit crisis. Goldman must now hope for similar suits against rival dealers so that it can try to deploy the Murder on the Orient Express defence – the argument that they all did it. But whether or not Goldman is joined in the dock by some of its peers, the industry now faces the most serious threat yet to its derivatives-based trading revenues and a business model of adopting multiple roles in the modern capital markets.

Jon Macaskill is one of the leading capital markets and derivatives journalists, with over 20 years’ experience covering financial markets from London and New York. Most recently he worked at one of the biggest global investment banks