Former boss of Bear Stearns blames market rumours for the collapse of the US investment bank in 2008

In business, in mountaineering and even in the pursuit of happiness, the most direct route isn't always best. Economist John Kay makes the case for obliquity

US Outlook: Forcing derivatives trading on to exchanges will bring transparency and cut counter-party risk

Hardliners around the English-speaking world who ignore the evidence for global warming will pay a heavy political price

In a huge setback for government prosecutors, a jury in New York City last night acquitted two former hedge-fund managers with Bear Stearns of lying to clients about the safety of their money even when they themselves allegedly saw disaster around the corner because of the imploding sub-prime mortgage market.

Managers accused of fraud over collapse of hedge funds that heralded meltdown

It seems that Steven Begleiter is rather better at casinos than he was at casino capitalism. The former Bear Stearns head of corporate strategy came within an ace (literally) of a shot at the $22m first prize of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Across Europe, the recovery is under way. But we are stuck in the longest downturn since 1945. Sean O'Grady explains why

The Bear Stearns hedge fund managers accused of defrauding investors are innocent of the charges, a defence lawyer told a New York jury, because "no one can lie about the future".

Bear Stearns bankers on trial in first criminal case of the credit crunch

According to the indictment against them, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, with others, "agreed to make misrepresentations [about the health of their funds] in the ultimately futile hope that the funds' bleak prospects would change". The core of the evidence against them is contained in emails, diary entries and recordings of conference calls.

Wall Street financiers to face jury over alleged securities and wire fraud

US Outlook: The sub-prime mortgage market is "toast". My mortgage company's products are "poison". The derivatives we've just offloaded to a client are "vomit". These are from internal emails across Wall Street as the credit market boom began to turn to bust (from Bear Stearns, Countrywide and UBS, respectively), and they have turned up in the first court cases in what looks set to be years of litigation and prosecutions.

The executive excesses uncovered by the end of the long boom initially incited just employee and shareholder anger. They have now given rise to public fury. Stephen Foley reports