3 weeks ago, the SEC charged Citigroup for misleading investors back in 2007 about the bank’s exposure to the subprime mortages. Citigroup agreed to pay $75 million in penalty. SEC felt triumphant, and Citigroup felt relieved.

Apparently an investor felt that the penalty was not sufficient, and that Citigroup should have been charged more, raising some questions about a sweetheart deal between the SEC and Citigroup. The investor’s lawyer apparently found a sympathetic judge, who was more than willing to listen. Now the investor is not the important story here, after all, what he only cares about is fame, glory, and probably a lot of money. What’s really important is that the integrity of the SEC is on the line, and if that integrity proves to be no more, then it may be determined that the SEC should be regulated, in one way or another, creating a precedent that will jeopardize both its autonomy and its independence. Let’s see how this story will unfold.

C, an always bullish stock, was up only 1 cent on a relatively good day, and it went down that cent in after hours. Clearly, the market didn’t like the news a lot (otherwise the stock would have been up at least 5 cents), but also didn’t care (which explains why the stock didn’t go down).

Note: I noticed that there was a very large volume when the stock hit $3.87 at 11:44 today. The stock had a volume of over 20 million shares.