Sounds Like SEC Will Struggle To Make Its Mickelson Case?

Until the last graph of the WSJ's extensive story on Phil Mickelson, Billy Walters, Dean Foods and the SEC investigation (first mentioned as heating up again by the New York Times) sounded ominous considering the recent resignation of Dean's CEO.

But to make Mickelson a criminal, quite an exchange of favors will need to be proven. It seems hard to fathom based on the tone of WSJ's Michael Rothfeld, Jean Eaglesham and Christopher M. Matthews that Mickelson can be implicated.

From end of the story:

While all three men’s activities are being investigated, the SEC could face a heightened legal hurdle in bringing any case against Mr. Mickelson, after an appeals court last year overturned the convictions of former hedge-fund traders Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson . The court cited judicial error and prosecutors’ failures to meet their burden of proof in a decision the government has criticized as weakening insider-trading law.

If that ruling were applied in full to any action potentially brought against Mr. Mickelson, the golfer would be liable only if the U.S. could “show that the tipper…expected to receive a personal benefit from disclosing the information and that Mr. Mickelson knew that the insider expected to receive that benefit,” said Adam Pritchard, a law professor at the University of Michigan. The U.S. solicitor general has asked the Supreme Court to review the 2014 ruling.