Law: Loose Legal Concept Gives Goldman Sachs Grounds to Argue

An article about "materiality" ...

Financial firms selling securities are required to disclose all the information about their products that is “material” to an investor’s decision to invest.

“The legal concept of materiality provides the dividing line between what information companies must disclose—and disclose correctly—and everything else,” explained former SEC official Richard Sauer in a 2007 issue of The Business Lawyer. “Materiality, however, is a highly judgmental standard, often colored by a variety of factual presumptions.” It’s also “inherently situational,” according to Sauer.

See Loose Legal Concept Gives Goldman Sachs Grounds to Argue by Marian Wang, Propublica, April 19, 2010.