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Securities
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June 18, 2013
Paul Hastings Snags Top Securities Atty From Fried Frank
Paul Hastings LLP on Tuesday said it has nabbed a former head of Fried Frank’s securities and shareholder litigation practice — who also comes with real estate litigation, antitrust and white collar expertise — to join the firm as a partner in its New York office.
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June 18, 2013
Skip Financial Reform In EU Trade Talks, House Dem. Says
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told President Barack Obama on Tuesday that next month's free trade agreement negotiations between the U.S. and the European Union shouldn't tackle financial reform issues because the discussion could harm financial reforms that Congress has passed.
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June 18, 2013
9th Circ. Awards US $20M In ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Tax Row
The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday ruled that Rothwell Ltd. must surrender $20 million from a securities account to the Internal Revenue Service because it is the account's caretaker for “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis, who owes the U.S. government millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.
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June 18, 2013
Ex-Baker Atty Asks For Probation In $55M Stock Fraud Case
A former Baker & McKenzie LLP securities partner urged a New York federal court Friday to reject the government’s “gratuitous and unfair” allegations as it’s considering his sentence for taking part in a $55 million stock-fraud deal and skimming $1.6 million from a client’s escrow account.
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June 18, 2013
Minority Reps. Raise Concerns About DOL Fiduciary Rule
Members of U.S. congressional minority caucuses on Friday expressed concerns that the U.S. Department of Labor's plan to repropose controversial regulations broadening the definition of "fiduciary" under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act could actually disadvantage those the agency is trying to help.
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June 18, 2013
Icahn Calls For $15.6B Stock Buyback In Dell Buyout Fight
Carl Icahn on Tuesday offered the latest version of his alternative to Dell Inc.’s $24.4 billion go-private deal, demanding the company buy back $15.6 billion in shares and digging in a month before a decisive shareholder vote.
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June 18, 2013
Rotech Equity Holders Lose Bid To Hire Moelis As Adviser
The equity committee in the Rotech Healthcare Inc. Chapter 11 case lost a bid to hire Moelis & Co. LLC as its financial adviser Tuesday, when a Delaware bankruptcy judge said Moelis' fee was too expensive for a creditor not believed to be getting any recovery.
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June 18, 2013
Morgans Hotel Board Learns SandRidge 'Proxy Put' Lesson
Morgans Hotel Group Co. said Tuesday its board's ouster last week won't force the company to buy back its debt because it had already approved the dissident directors for the purposes of its covenants, heeding a recent lesson from Delaware court.
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June 18, 2013
Merck Investors Cut Claims In Securities Fraud MDL
Several Allianz Global Investors units and Swedish national pension fund Fjarde AP-fonden have dismissed their claims in a multidistrict litigation claiming Merck & Co. and its executives misrepresented arthritis painkiller Vioxx to inflate Merck stock, say documents filed Tuesday in New Jersey federal court.
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June 18, 2013
K-Sea Escapes Investor Suit Over Obsolete Oil Tankers
A New Jersey federal judge on Friday tossed a putative class action alleging oil barge operator K-Sea Transportation Partners LP misled investors in 2009 about the company’s earnings and neglected to reveal that its obsolete fleet of single-hull tankers would be phased out.
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June 18, 2013
Scott & Scott To Lead SAC Insider Trading Class Action
A New York federal judge has named Scott & Scott LLP as lead counsel in a putative class action against SAC Capital Advisors over an alleged $276 million insider trading scheme at the hedge fund involving Wyeth Ltd. stock, according to a Monday order.
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June 18, 2013
Supplement Co. CEO Convicted Again After 9th Circ. Reversal
A former dietary supplement company CEO once again has been found guilty of securities fraud charges in California, after the Ninth Circuit in August overturned a prior conviction based on evidentiary missteps by the government, the U.S. Attorney’s office announced Monday.
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June 18, 2013
UK Charges Ex-UBS Trader In Libor Scandal
U.K. officials on Tuesday charged a former UBS AG and Citigroup Inc. trader for his alleged role in rigging the London Interbank Offer Rate, the latest announced development in efforts by U.S. and European authorities to unravel the widespread scandal.
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June 17, 2013
Sprint Sues Dish To Block Clearwire Takeover
Sprint Nextel Corp. sued Dish Network Corp. and Clearwire Corp. on Monday in Delaware court, claiming Dish's proposed takeover of Clearwire breaks an investor agreement and is designed to coerce unknowing minority stockholders into ceding their shares.
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June 17, 2013
'Naked' Liens Don't Open IRAs To Creditors: 6th Circ.
The Sixth Circuit on Monday reversed lower courts’ rulings that found a bankrupt man’s retirement account was fair game for creditors after he signed a lien agreement with Merrill Lynch, ruling that a “naked lien,” stripped of any connection to a credit transaction, doesn’t disqualify a retirement plan from exempt status.
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June 17, 2013
Goldman Sachs Can't Dodge $491M MBS Suit
A California federal judge indicated Monday that he will reject Goldman Sachs & Co.'s bid to escape most of a $491 million lawsuit alleging it misrepresented mortgage-backed securities, saying he changed his mind since tentatively ruling in March that the National Credit Union Administration Board's claims were time-barred.
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June 17, 2013
BofA Denied Interim Appeal Of FDIC, Taylor Bean Ruling
A Washington federal judge on Monday refused to certify Bank of America NA’s interlocutory appeal of her decision barring the bank from submitting additional evidence limiting its liability linked to another bank tied to Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp.'s alleged fraud.
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June 17, 2013
University To Cough Up Evidence In SAC Insider Trading Case
The University of Michigan has agreed to turn over possible evidence in the insider trading case against former SAC Capital Advisors LP portfolio manager Mathew Martoma, Martoma’s lawyer said Monday.
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June 17, 2013
Tyco Pays SEC $13M To Settle Foreign Bribery Charges
A Washington federal judge approved a $13 million settlement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Tyco International Ltd. after the company allegedly bribed foreign government officials to secure contracts and hid the illegal payments in its financial records.
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June 17, 2013
High Court Turns Suspect Silence Into Prosecutorial Tool
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday that Fifth Amendment protections don’t apply to precustody interviews unless explicitly invoked, experts say white collar lawyers would be wise to inform clients that while they have the right to remain silent, now more than ever that silence may be used against them in a court of law.
Expert Analysis
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Much Ado About 'Say-On-Pay'
As the 2013 proxy season kicked off, there was a great deal of speculation among public companies, their counsel and commentators over whether say-on-pay challenges would continue. But attempts to refashion Dodd-Frank’s say-on-pay requirements into an annual litigation phenomenon appear to have waned, says Nicholas Even of Haynes and Boone LLP.
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Digging Into SEC Mineral Disclosure Policies
Recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules require resource extraction issuers to disclose annually certain information on payments they make to the U.S. government and foreign governments for the purpose of the commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals. But while these rules were accompanied by extensive adopting releases, ambiguities remain, resulting in a substantial number of compliance questions, say attorneys with Mayer Brown LLP.
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Lehman Derivative Litigation Still Looms Large
The market’s attention is fixed firmly on the future of derivatives. Questions about the Dodd Frank requirements, and to what extent the use of swaps in structured finance and other transactions will return, are front and center. And yet, there are also lessons to be learned from the past use of these somewhat esoteric financial instruments, which continue to be tested in litigation — with more to come on the Lehman front, say attorneys with Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
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How To Evaluate Insider Threats And Trading Risks
In light of several recent insider trading scandals, any hedge fund hoping to succeed should know that setting up an innovative internal mechanism to detect employee risk is paramount. Such an effective program requires evaluating factors such as employee behavior and anomalies in communication to create a new lens to investigate potential insider risk, says Jason Golub of K2 Intelligence LLC.
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New Dark Pool Regulation On The Horizon
Dark pool operators readying for new governance might give advance thought to the trading system build-outs that may be necessary to comply with a price improvement rule. Additionally, they may take an introspective look at how they use their customer’s trading information and what they disclose to customers about such use, as well as their surveillance systems to identify areas warranting improvement, says Christina Davilas of Bingham McCutchen LLP.
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Contracting In A Perfect Storm Of Enforcement Risk: Part 2
Traditionally, contractors have viewed various aspects of responsibility — responding to investigations, developing ethics programs, interfacing with the customer, etc. — as entirely separate silo practices. In recent years, however, such a piecemeal approach to legal risk management has been shown to be startlingly ineffective, say attorneys with Covington & Burling LLP.
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Is TAR Right For Your Discovery Project?
There are several critical decision factors to weigh to assess whether Technology Assisted Review is right for a discovery project — for example, the nature of the case, internal capabilities, production considerations and overall comfort with this technology, say Michele Lange and Joseph White of Kroll Ontrack Inc.
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Stock Tips: Inside The New Exchange Listing Standards
In adopting the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new stock exchange listing standards — which take effect July 1, 2013 — the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq Stock Market and NYSE MKT LLC advised the SEC that they will rely upon their respective internal policies to reconcile noncompliance situations. One should probably conclude that consequent delisting is unlikely, says Laurence Lese of Duane Morris LLP.
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Class Arbitration Is Back In Arbitrators’ Hands
Arbitrators can still interpret contracts pretty much any way they want, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter. The holding should come as no great surprise as it reflects decades of federal arbitration law, yet the unanimous ruling is a surprise, given what preceded it, says Christopher King of Homer Bonner Jacobs.
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5 FAQs About Burma Investment Reporting Requirements
Businesses and individuals investing directly or indirectly in Myanmar will need to monitor the flow of their capital to identify when reports to the U.S. State Department are required, ensure that they have access to the information required as part of the annual reports, and be aware of what information may be made public, say attorneys with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.