Indeed, at a hearing in August, the judge in the case said that the case against Meng seemed very unusual. No one lost money, the allegations were several years old, and the intended victim, a global bank, knew the truth even as it was allegedly being lied to.
Heather Holmes, associate chief justice, asked: “Isn’t it unusual that one will see a fraud case with no actual harm many years later? And one in which the alleged victim, a large institution, appears to have had numerous people within the institution who had all the facts that are now said to be misrepresented?”
In reaching the out of court settlement the US may have acknowledged its case at trial was hardly watertight.