Apparently disturbed with the adverse publicity earlier this week emanating from the decision not to pursue this case, New York’s Aspiring Governor fought back yesterday by announcing that he is continuing to protect all of us from that sordid business practice of payola — i.e., radio stations owners accepting money from promoters to pay certain types of noise — er, I mean, music — over the airwaves. this NY Times article reports that Mr. Spitzer has reached a $5 million settlement with Warner Music Group Corp. for offering trips, gifts and agreements to cover operating costs in exchange for increased airplay for certain songs. Here is an earlier post on Mr. Spitzer’s payola investigation.
By the way, the Wall Street Journal ($) article on the settlement included the following quote from Mr. Spitzer: “I never like to presume what an investigation will show or conclude.” Oh, really?
Although certainly an effective vehicle for his gubernatorial campaign, Spitzer’s payola investigation is simply another example of his misguided approach to regulating business (Larry Ribstein has been at the forefront of making this point). As with his many other forays, Spitzer has used the leverage of a criminal investigation to force the type of business regulations that he deems appropriate. But Spitzer’s regulations are not developed under any legislative process and are not even reviewable under the normal administrative process for business regulations. In short, Spitzer’s approach is regulation through force rather than the rule of law, without regard to whether the regulations that he is imposing are more costly to the public than the supposed wrongs that the regulations are supposed to correct.

You can’t slip a deal past the New York Times in which too much money is being made.
In this article that is clearly intended to decry capitalists taking advantage of deregulated markets, the Times compares the sellers in the pending Texas Genco deal (more accurately described in earlier posts here and here) with the societal pariah Enron and then mischaracterizes the true risk that the sellers took on the deal.
I was going to criticize the Times’ one-sided analysis of the Texas Genco deal, but then it occurred to me that such puerile analysis is utterly consistent with a news outfit that — in the face of the public’s increasing access to free online news sources — responds to its sagging subscription sales by charging for its web content. For a more astute analysis of the transaction, note Dale Oesterle’s observations on the deal over at the Business Law Prof Blog.