Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
This was not a "ruling", as someone suggested. It was merely a comment letter from the Justice Department to the Treasury regarding interest rate derivatives. Treasury is free to ignore it. Unless I am missing something, the reaction is way overdone.
It is however sadly typical of the utter incompetency of the Bush Justice Department. They took a position that is diametrically opposed to one they took last summer, apparently because a couple of foreign exchanges failed to make inroads. They manage to destroy 15% of the value of one of the few companies in America that is a world beater.