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Throughout the week over at Securities Docket, I highlight the most interesting columns and blog posts from around the web on the subjects of SEC enforcement and securities litigation. Here is a digest of my picks for the week ending January 7:

Analyzing Alcatel-Lucent
FCPA Professor | Mike Koehler | Jan 6, 2011
This post analyzes the Alcatel-Lucent enforcement action. The enforcement action (all 360 pages) is a FCPA feast. Principally based on the lack of due diligence of third-party agents, the enforcement action serves up the following: lots of alleged state-owned or state-controlled telecommunication entities; consultants hired after contracts were secured; a purported telecommunications consultant with only perfume experience; payments to legislators and political parties; things of value including excessive travel and entertainment expenses and crystal for the secretary; joint ventures; and payments from New York and Miami bank accounts.
The Top Ten D&O Stories of 2010
The D&O Diary | Kevin LaCroix | Jan 5, 2011
2010 was an eventful year in the world of D&O liability. Congress passed massive financial reform legislation, the Supreme Court issued landmark decisions in important cases and numerous claims emerged as litigation landscape continued to evolve. With so much going on, it is a challenge to narrow the year's events down to just the ten most significant developments. With appropriate humility about the limitations of all year-end inventories, here is my list of the top ten D&O developments of 2010.
Hedge-Fund Inside Tips Are Like Paying for Sex
Bloomberg | Ann Woolner | Jan 5, 2011
Snippets of secretly taped conversations from the U.S. government's latest hot case ring with a certain familiarity. “The service we provide is, you know, whatever you're looking for,” a newly charged criminal defendant says to a client, unaware he's being recorded.... This time, it's not a call-girl conspiracy outfit but an alleged insider-trading scheme. People working for Primary Global Research LLC, a Mountain View, California-based expert network for hedge funds and wealth managers, allegedly gave the same sort of service the Emperor's Club offered: confidential, high-quality and illegal.
Some Myths About Insider Trading
Truth on the Market | Henry G. Manne | Jan 4, 2011
The SEC is at it again, scandal mongering insider trading. As usual this is the “biggest insider trading case yet,” as if they were trying for some Guinness record. Since this story will be in the financial press for months and months to come, the well informed spectator – or participant – will want to understand that a lot of what is thought to be known about insider trading “ain't necessarily so.”
The Insider Trading Bread and Circus
Forbes-Injustice Department | Harvey Silverglate | Jan 3, 2011
Consider the detention of Chinese-born American citizen Xue Feng, an employee of a Colorado-based research firm who obtained information in 2005 on oil wells in his native country. Three years later, Beijing authorities retroactively declared such information to be “state secrets,” arrested Mr. Feng, and, after a lengthy trial, sentenced him to eight years in prison. To most Americans, something is plainly wrong with a researcher being imprisoned for gathering data deemed only after-the-fact to be off-limits. But to what extent, one must ask, do vaguely-worded laws against securities fraud in the U.S. provide a similar lack of notice?
A Closer Look at the 2010 Securities Lawsuit Filings
The D&O Diary | Kevin LaCroix | Jan 3, 2011
2010 was a year of transition for securities class action lawsuit filings, as a number of trends that have been dominant in recent years diminished as the year progressed, while at the same time other trends emerged. Overall, the number of filings during the year was up slightly from last year, although below long term averages. But as noted below, the securities class action lawsuit filing levels are only part of what has been happening from an overall claims frequency standpoint.
2010 FCPA Enforcement Index
FCPA Blog | Richard Cassin | Jan 3, 2011
Companies settling FCPA-related charges in 2010 paid a record $1.8 billion in financial penalties to the DOJ and SEC. That compares with $641 million in 2009 and $890 million in 2008, the year of Siemens' $800 million settlement, still the largest ever.