The Washington Post article Events May Signal Change in Stock Offerings, contrasts Google's offering to the verdict rendered today in the Frank Quattrone trial.

Quattrone is a symbol of all that was Evil and Corrupt in the investment banking world--"laddering" or spinning low-priced IPO shares to favored clients, who then make huge windfall profits when the shares are offered to the public.

Columbia University law professor John C. Coffee Jr. said Google's decision to award shares through an auction open to small investors indicates that some forces are moving ahead of regulators to address the perception that the IPO process benefits Wall Street firms and their friends rather than the companies going public and individual investors.

"I do think we are starting to move away from a system that gives all the profits to intermediaries," he said.

Google's offering may change the way investment banks operate:

Among other things, it could discourage firms from setting artificially low prices on IPO shares. This practice allows for big one-day price "pops" on the open market and thus big profits for people fortunate enough to hold the initial shares. But such low-balling also often angers the companies going public because it demonstrates that they could have sold their shares at higher prices.

Click for more on the Google stock offering.