The judge who slapped Citi

After Judge Rakoff's ruling against the SEC's proposed settlement with Citigroup, corporate defendants are running scared. But there may be ways to placate him.

By Roger Parloff, senior editor

FORTUNE -- In a series of blistering opinions delivered over the past three years, culminating in his rejection on Monday of a $285 million proposed consent decree between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a Citigroup unit, Manhattan federal judge Jed Rakoff MORE

Central banks offer aid, but not a eurozone fix

The coordinated move by central banks to make it cheaper to borrow dollars won't solve the eurozone's debt crisis. The eurobond is the best solution, but only if done right.

By Cyrus Sanati, contributor

FORTUNE -- European leaders are watching the Band-Aids they stuck on the eurozone's gushing wound of debt start to peel off. The largest attempted fix, the 440 billion euro European Financial Stability Facility, finally fell off last night, MORE

M&A

Samsung C&T and KNOC have agreed to acquire Midland, Texas.-based Parallel Petroleum from Apollo Global Management. No financial terms were disclosed, although Reuters puts the pricetag at $772 million. Earlier reports had suggested that the deal could be valued at upwards of $900 million.www.parallel-petro.com

Adobe has acquired Sunnyvale, Calif.-based digital marketing company Efficient Frontier for an undisclosed amount. www.adobe.com

Visteon Corp. (NYSE: VC) has signed an agreement to sell a majority of its auto interiors business to an existing MORE

Private Equity deals

Halyard Capital has acquired Tranzact Information Services, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based provider of automated marketing services, from Tranzact. No financial terms were disclosed for the deal, which will result in a newly-independent company renamed Datamyx. www.halyard.com

Lyceum Capital has acquired Clearswift, a British provider of digital security software. No financial terms were disclosed. www.clearswift.com

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has agreed to sell its WiMAX business to NewNet Communication Technologies, a Shelton, Conn.-based portfolio company of Skyview Capital. Financial terms were not MORE

Venture capital deals

AcuFocus Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based maker of a corneal inlay for treating near-vision loss (presbyopia), has raised $65 million in new financing. The first $40 million is equity, from Cowen Healthcare Royalty Partners, Medtronic and return backers SV Life Sciences, Versant Ventures, Carlyle Group, Accuitive Medical Ventures and Bausch & Lomb. The other $25 million is a synthetic royalty investment from Cowen. www.acufocus.com

LogiXML, a McLean, Va.-based provider of Web-based business intelligence software, has MORE

Keating to list 'pre-IPO' fund

Public investors soon get another chance to buy private company stock.

Keating Capital, a Colorado–based firm that gives individual investors the chance to buy pre-IPO shares in private companies, is planning to list its closed-end fund on December 12.

The vehicle is similar in structure to Michael Moe's GSV Capital (GSVC). The strategic difference is that Keating mostly tries to avoid social media and other large Internet issuers, instead preferring to back MORE

Pre-Marketing: John Paulson protection

* 1 in 1%: Who really won that Powerball jackpot?

* Major milestone: U.S. close to becoming net exporter of fuel

* Paulson protection: The 92nd Street Y has a cushion against Wall St. worries

* George Packer: What billionaire Peter Thiel and homeless Ray Kachel have in common

* Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, European shares slump on banks and the Nikkei falls 0.5%. [Update: Things have turned around globally after China cut banks' MORE

Exclusive: Parish Capital sold

Back in April, we reported that private equity fund-of-funds manager Parish Capital had put itself up for sale (a tricky endeavor, given that many of Parish's own clients and employees hadn't yet been told). Now the North Carolina-based firm seems to have found its buyer.

Private equity adviser StepStone Group LLC is expected to announce tomorrow morning that it has agreed to acquire Parish's fund management business for an undisclosed amount. MORE

Oil roars back to $100, but does anybody care?

Oil price volatility is back, and so are calls for investigations into what's driving it. Taxpayers have paid for countless similar probes for decades, without a single conclusive result.

By Leah McGrath Goodman, contributor

FORTUNE -- Before this decade, it was unheard of for crude oil prices to jump a few dollars a day unless the U.S. was under a trade embargo or about to go to war. And even then, the MORE

Facebook IPO: Nothing new learned

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal got a huge amount of attention for reporting that Facebook is preparing to go public next year in an IPO that could value the company in excess of $100 billion. It became the top story on HuffingtonPost, and got prominent links/rewrites everywhere from Reuters to Drudge.

Huh? I've read the WSJ story several times, and can't find any information that hasn't been previously reported. The only MORE