Even though most Americans view the financial crisis of 2008-09 as old news, two events last week in New York City could change that view. And renewed attention on the near financial meltdown could help prevent a reoccurrence.

In a challenge to the routine, slap-on-the-wrist settlements between big banks and the Securities and Exchange Commission, a federal judge threw out a settlement plan last week, saying the evidence in the case did not let him determine if the deal was fair.

A proposed $285 million settlement between Citigroup and the SEC over the bank’s handling of mortgage securities was typical of deals that have been approved in the past. But Judge Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in Manhattan, said he could not make a judgment on the settlement’s fairness because there was not enough evidence to support the charges or refute them.

Too often, deals between a big bank and the SEC look like a legal expediency in which the bank doesn’t admit to wrongdoing but pays a fine, usually insignificant in terms of the bank’s billions of dollars in profits. The plea deals let the banks get the issue behind them at a low cost.

But instead of letting the charges against Citigroup, alleging that it sold bundles of mortgages to investors while at the same time betting against those same investments, be quietly swept under the rug, Rakoff said, “Not so fast.”

Rakoff, who is known for not giving such deals an easy pass, said his approval of any settlement must be based on facts, and the SEC as well as Citigroup failed to present enough evidence about the complex investments at the center of the settlement and the bank’s behavior.

By rejecting the suspected wink-and-a-nod between Citigroup and the SEC in which the bank denies criminal wrongdoing — but promises to not do it again — Rakoff’s action could lead to a trial that would give the public an inside view of the bank’s operations leading up to the financial crisis.

If that were to happen and the curtain is pulled back from what went on at major banks and investment firms, the public might better understand the role played by Wall Street in the financial crisis. And that knowledge could translate to political pressure for tougher laws to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

According to the SEC, Citigroup gained $160 million betting against the packaged mortgages. Investors who bought the mortgage bundles lost $700 million.

Another news report from New York City last week helped the public understand what happened during the financial crisis and the degree to which the federal government propped up shaky banks.

Bloomberg News fought, and paid for, a lengthy legal battle that forced disclosure of information by the Federal Reserve revealing that the Fed secretly loaned hundreds of billions of dollars to the country’s six largest banks. This massive bailout was separate from the well-known TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bailout.

At the deepest point of the crisis, the emergency loans from the Fed to the major banks were seen as preventing a domino-effect collapse of the U.S. and global banking systems. By keeping the information secret, the Fed made it less likely that frightened investors would sell their bank shares or that public fears would cause a run on the banks, with people and businesses desperately attempting to take out their deposits, further weakening the banks.

It is not unreasonable to argue that revealing details of the Fed’s emergency loan program as it was happening could have made the crisis worse. But later, it should have been made public. Not surprisingly, the banks and the Fed fought the release of the information.

Bloomberg News should not have had to go to court to get information on what the Fed, a government agency, had done.

Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant with the SEC, disapproved of the proposed SEC-Citigroup settlement and said, “If the banks knew this stuff was going to be made public they’d behave differently. Instead of runs on the bank, you’d have bankers doing things intelligently to avoid getting into trouble.”

He’s right. And the recent actions by Rakoff and Bloomberg News both contribute to greater transparency, which could lead to changed behavior at the nation’s biggest banks.