William Ackman’s multi-year effort to expose Herbalife as a Ponzi scheme (and make good on his massive short of its stock) saw something of a moral victory last week, with the FTC imposing big-time sanctions ($200 million in consumer relief) on the nutritional supplements company on Friday but stopping short of shutting Herbalife down [making Carl Icahn very happy] – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg

Fair Game picks up the HSBC non-prosecution story that House Financial Services committee Republicans recently issued faulting the DOJ for turning “a potential criminal prosecution of a large global bank . . . into a watered-down settlement that insulated its executives and failed to take into account the full scope of the bank’s violations” – NYTimes

Speaking of settlements, here’s a look behind the scenes of the very speedy VW deal, which was rather amazingly completed in just 6 months, despite its $15 billion price tag and countless moving pieces – NYTimes

One potentially perilous side effect of our extended low-rate environment is the [re]emergence of housing bubbles in markets all over the world – WSJ

Japan’s SoftBank has agreed to acquire British semiconductor company (and mobile chip designer) ARM Holdings for a reported $32 billion, the largest deal ever for SoftBank – NYTimes and WSJ

With cyberattacks running rampant and regulators of all stripes looking to weigh in, here’s a helpful look at the highlights of the SEC’s cybersecurity playbook – Law360

No one expected Neel Kashkari to play it safe upon his rather-novel arrival at the Minneapolis Fed.  He’s since proved everyone right—not only with his hardline position on breaking up the big banks but now with his passionate commitment to emojis – Bloomberg

As nVidia’s new headquarters are demonstrating, Virtual Reality (in the form of a program called Iray) is bringing a whole new element to the architectural design process – NYTimes

Who knew that Antiques Roadshow was a hotbed of fraternal intrigue and scandal – NYTimes