... Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) won’t face criminal prosecution related to sales of mortgage-linked securities because such a move could threaten the U.S. financial system, according to Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. ...

... A 2003 Justice Department policy document “stated that prosecutors can reward cooperation by offering a negotiated settlement to a targeted company that can range from immunity from criminal indictment to a deferred prosecution agreement,” Hintz wrote. “Ultimately, the targeted company is treated not as a hardened criminal but as the equivalent of a juvenile offender that can be reformed.”

Goldman Sachs’s potential civil litigation risk related to sales of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations “is manageable,” Hintz wrote, because the statute of limitations for many of the claims has already passed. ...