Court Opinion

ID: 9479751
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:28:08.871233+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:15.564884
License: Public Domain

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
joined by EDWARDS, Circuit Judge, concurring:
With the qualification set out below bearing on the propriety of injunctive relief, we join Judge Silberman’s opinion. The injunction bears affirmation, we are satisfied, because the district judge’s alleged inclusion of improper factors in his calculus was harmless — if indeed it occurred at all. We need not, therefore, decide independently that an injunction is warranted; even if we were to do so, moreover, we would rest our decision on the district court’s pivotal findings of fact, which are not clearly erroneous.
First, it is hardly plain that the district judge actually relied on any improper factors in granting the injunction. His reference to a “public perception” that appellants engaged in hostile takeovers was made to bolster his finding, firmly grounded in properly admitted evidence, that appellants’ business will offer repeated opportunities for future violations of securities laws. The reference to public perception in the district court’s opinion, we note, is sandwiched between this critical (and not genuinely questionable) finding and a citation to a case holding that such a core finding supports an injunction. See SEC v. First City Financial Corp., 688 F.Supp. 705, 725 (D.D.C.1988). Justifying an injunction in terms of propitiating public sentiment would be objectionable as a matter of law; but the district court’s remedial judgment here was securely placed and did not rest crucially on that infirm reed.
Nor do we believe the district court relied dispositively on appellants’ lack of remorse or grounded any lack of remorse determination on appellants’ presentation of a vigorous defense. Rather, the district court cited appellants’ lack of remorse to support the court’s decision not to credit appellants’ promises to obey the law in the future. Case law supports this reasoning, which essentially turns on the unproblematic conclusion that professions of future compliance are not credible when proffered by persons who have deliberately broken the law and lied to the court in the past. See SEC v. Koracorp Indus., Inc., 575 F.2d 692, 698 (9th Cir.1978).
In any event, even if the district court did rely in part on an improper finding of lack of remorse, any error in this regard would rank as harmless. The district judge based his grant of the injunction primarily on precisely the same factors relied on by Judge Silberman: appellants’ deliberate violation of the securities laws and their business position. These findings were amply supported by the record and alone justify an injunction. There is, accordingly, no cause for upsetting on appeal the injunction decreed by the district court.