Review & Outlook

The Troubling SAC Case

Can a criminal enterprise be run by someone who isn't a criminal?

Updated July 28, 2013 7:35 p.m. ET

A friend who used to work on Wall Street once interrupted a conversation by noting that the government now has the power to destroy any company it chooses in American finance. Which is what the government seems intent on doing with its criminal indictment Thursday of SAC Capital as an insider-trading conspiracy.

This is a troubling case in many ways, and not only because of the government's use of such brute force. The hedge fund's CEO and owner, Stephen A. Cohen, is a multibillionaire given to lavish consumption who...

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