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Securities
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April 04, 2024
Investors Want To Try Fraud Case Receiver Won't
Investors in a company accused by securities regulators of a $125 million Ponzi scheme said Thursday they should get to pursue fraudulent transfer claims against other companies themselves, after a receiver indicated he didn't have the resources to go after them.
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April 04, 2024
9th Circ. Unconvinced Judge's Past Job Hurt Tesla Investor
The Ninth Circuit on Thursday refused to revive claims brought by a short-seller accusing Tesla Inc. and CEO Elon Musk of using social media to artificially inflate the company's stock, ruling that the plaintiff wasn't prejudiced by a district judge's former employment with the predecessor of a firm that represented Tesla for a portion of the litigation.
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April 04, 2024
Google Files RICO Suit Alleging Crypto, Investing App Scams
Google hit a pair of China-based app developers with a racketeering lawsuit in New York federal court Thursday, claiming they defrauded more than 100,000 users with dozens of fake investment and cryptocurrency exchange apps placed on the Google Play store that bilked users out of their money.
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April 04, 2024
Crypto Bank, Chair Blast FTX Investors' 'Gatling Gun' Claims
A crypto bank and its chairman have urged a Florida federal judge to toss a second amended complaint from FTX investors alleging they helped Sam Bankman-Fried abscond with $8 billion in customer assets, saying the investors "employ a Gatling gun approach to pleading."
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April 04, 2024
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Can't Duck Archegos Claims
A New York appellate court on Thursday affirmed a decision refusing to dismiss ViacomCBS investors' claims against Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and a long list of banks over the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, finding that investors plausibly identified statements the banks made that could have been misleading.
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April 04, 2024
Crypto Co. Fined $700,000 For Duping Investors Into 'AI' Trading
The owner of an unlicensed cryptocurrency investment firm wooed a cancer patient and other investors with promises of AI-driven trading, only to use their funds for rent payments and other personal expenses, Connecticut regulators said Wednesday in ordering a $700,000 fine.
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April 04, 2024
SEC Fines Adviser Senvest $6.5M In Texting Probe Case
Investment adviser Senvest Management LLC has agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission $6.5 million for its failure to hold on to certain electronic communications, the SEC said, expanding the list of settlements the agency has secured with firms in recent months over off-channel texting violations.
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April 04, 2024
Wells Fargo Hit With Del. Suit Targeting Account Abuses
Citing billions of dollars in regulatory agency sanctions, fines and judgments and allegedly chronic disregard of "red flag" reports and fake account investigations, a Wells Fargo & Co. stockholder has sued 23 current and former bank directors and officers in Delaware's Court of Chancery, seeking derivative recoveries for the losses.
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April 04, 2024
BAE Stuck $8.2B Retirement Plan With Hefty Fees, Court Told
Aerospace and defense company BAE Systems breached federal benefits law by saddling its $8.2 billion retirement plan with excessive recordkeeping fees and causing participants' savings to plummet, a proposed class action filed in D.C. federal court said.
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April 04, 2024
Ginnie Mae, HUD Must Face Bank's Vacated Lien Suit
A Texas federal judge trimmed but declined to dismiss Texas Capital Bank's suit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and its Government National Mortgage Association program over a vacated loan lien that the bank says was worth tens of millions of dollars.
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April 04, 2024
BitMEX Can't Ax Investor Suit After 2nd Circ.'s Binance Ruling
A New York federal judge has refused to toss a proposed class action accusing cryptocurrency platform BitMEX and its executives of using their "God access" to customer accounts to manipulate trades and liquidate the accounts, finding that under the Second Circuit's recent Binance ruling, the transactions occurred in the U.S.
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April 04, 2024
Attys Awarded $1.5M In Fees On Tax Disclosure Suit
Attorneys who won a $4.5 million settlement for a class of investors claiming a Chinese startup misrepresented its tax liability will receive their requested $1.5 million in attorney fees, a New York federal judge ruled.
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April 04, 2024
Judge Recuses Herself From Cartel Case Over Exxon Stock
A Nevada federal judge has recused herself from a batch of antitrust lawsuits claiming U.S. shale oil producers colluded with OPEC to drive up prices at the pump, citing her ownership of a "significant" amount of Exxon Mobil Corp. stock.
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April 04, 2024
Judge Won't Pause Dismissal Of $114M Discord Stock Case
A Houston judge has denied a bid from federal prosecutors to pause the dismissal of an indictment that accused eight men of running a $114 million pump-and-dump stock scheme, writing that the government's argument for a stay largely rehashes the merits of dismissing the case and "is not particularly persuasive."
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April 04, 2024
SEC Voluntarily Puts Climate Regs On Ice During Court Battle
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Thursday that it is voluntarily delaying the implementation of climate disclosure regulations while it fights an Eighth Circuit challenge seeking to vacate the rules, with the regulator saying that it hopes the voluntary stay will speed resolution of the case.
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April 04, 2024
UK Billionaire Lewis Avoids Prison For Insider Trading
A New York federal judge on Thursday sentenced British billionaire Joe Lewis to three years of probation for feeding his girlfriend and private-jet pilots nonpublic stock tips about his private equity firm's portfolio companies, saying a prison term would put the 87-year-old at "serious risk" of death.
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April 04, 2024
Ex-CEO Reaches Legal Fee Agreement With Trump-Tied SPAC
A Delaware vice chancellor has signed off on an agreement between Donald Trump-tied Digital World Acquisition Corp. and its former CEO to have the venture pay his legal costs related to federal probes and litigation in multiple states.
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April 04, 2024
Del. Justices Reverse Chancery On Match.com Deal Fairness
Delaware's Supreme Court on Thursday undid a Chancery Court dismissal of a challenge to Match.com's 2019 reverse-spinoff from Barry Diller-controlled IAC Interactive, in a closely watched case rejecting the lower court's finding that Match had justified the use of a less onerous fairness test.
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April 04, 2024
Withers Adds Former In-House Corp. Atty In San Francisco
Withers has hired the former in-house general counsel for a financial software company, who joins the firm to continue his practice working with entrepreneurs in the technology, e-commerce and digital publishing industries, the firm announced Wednesday.
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April 04, 2024
IT Firm ConvergeOne To Wipe $1.6B Of Debt In Ch. 11
Information technology company ConvergeOne Holdings Inc. received preliminary approval for a disclosure statement Thursday that describes its plan to slash $1.6 billion from its balance sheet in a prepackaged Chapter 11.
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April 03, 2024
SEC Disclosures Show Public Cos. Backing DEI, Study Finds
Public companies overwhelmingly prioritized diversity, equity and inclusion principles in their mandatory workforce disclosures to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 despite a flurry of litigation and legislative proposals aimed at deterring those initiatives in the corporate world, a study from Seyfarth Shaw LLP attorneys found.
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April 03, 2024
Accused 'Shadow Trader' Takes Stand To Slam SEC's Case
A former Medivation executive accused of "shadow trading" when he purchased stock in rival Incyte testified in his California federal civil trial Wednesday that he didn't base that decision on confidential information, and he didn't think even "for one second" that he was violating securities laws.
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April 03, 2024
Fla. Magistrate Nixes Recusal Bid In CBD Co. Securities Suit
A Florida federal magistrate judge has shot down an effort to have her disqualified from a securities fraud case against a CBD company for remarks she allegedly made during a March settlement conference, saying the plaintiffs' arguments in favor of recusal were "legally insufficient" to establish bias.
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April 03, 2024
OneCoin Atty Gets 4 Years For Role In $4B Crypto Fraud
The former head of legal and compliance at OneCoin on Wednesday was sentenced to four years in prison for her role in the $4 billion cryptocurrency scheme that defrauded millions of investors around the world.
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April 03, 2024
UK Billionaire Lewis Agrees To $1.64M Insider Trading Penalty
British billionaire Joseph Lewis has agreed to pay $1.64 million to settle the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's civil claims he fed confidential tips to his personal pilots and then-girlfriend after pleading guilty to related criminal charges earlier this year.
Expert Analysis
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Parsing 2023's Energy Markets Enforcement
A review of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's and Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recently released fiscal year 2023 enforcement reports highlight the significant energy market enforcement activities, litigation pursued and settlements reached by both agencies, as well as their respective strategic goals and focus areas, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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A Review Of 2023's Most Notable Securities Litigation
There is much to be learned from the most prominent private securities cases of 2023, specifically the Tesla trial, the U.S. Supreme Court's Slack decision and the resolution of Goldman Sachs litigation, but one lesson running through all of them is that there can be rewards at the end of the line for defendants willing to go the distance, say attorneys at Fried Frank.
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ESG Investing Caught In Culture War Crosshairs In 2023
As 2023 draws to a close, ESG investing remains a raging battleground in the U.S. culture wars, as illustrated by the array of legislative efforts across the country aimed variously at restricting or promoting the use of ESG investing — but it remains to be seen what practical impact, if any, these laws will have, say Amy Roy and Robert Skinner at Ropes & Gray.
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Inside CFTC's Latest Push To Regulate Carbon Markets
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's newly proposed guidance for voluntary carbon credit derivative contracts is among several recent moves it has taken to address climate-related financial risk, and although the guidance is less robust than it could be, it should foster discussion toward a regulatory framework for this market, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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How Clients May Use AI To Monitor Attorneys
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
Artificial intelligence tools will increasingly enable clients to monitor and evaluate their counsel’s activities, so attorneys must clearly define the terms of engagement and likewise take advantage of the efficiencies offered by AI, says Ronald Levine at Herrick Feinstein.
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8 Ways To Negotiate Improved Disgorgement Outcomes
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's nearly $3.4 billion collected in disgorgements in 2023 shows that substantial disgorgement claims from regulators and law enforcement are the new norm, but corporations may be able to dramatically reduce what they owe by using eight strategies to argue for reduced net profit calculations, say experts at AlixPartners.
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How The NY AG Leads Investigations In Civil Securities Fraud
Although investigating white collar fraud can put significant strain on state and local resources, the New York Attorney General's Office has continued to use its expansive statutory authority to take a leading role in bringing civil enforcement actions in highly complex financial matters, say Carrie Cohen and Nathan Reilly at MoFo.
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Series
ESG Around The World: Singapore
Singapore is keen to establish itself as a leading international financial center and a key player in the sustainable finance ecosystem, and key initiatives led by its government and other regulatory bodies have helped the Asian nation progress from its initially guarded attitude toward ESG investment and reporting, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Series
The Pop Culture Docket: Judge D'Emic On Moby Grape
The 1968 Moby Grape song "Murder in My Heart for the Judge" tells the tale of a fictional defendant treated with scorn by the judge, illustrating how much the legal system has evolved in the past 50 years, largely due to problem-solving courts and the principles of procedural justice, says Kings County Supreme Court Administrative Judge Matthew D'Emic.
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Series
Performing Music Makes Me A Better Lawyer
The discipline of performing live music has directly and positively influenced my effectiveness as a litigator — serving as a reminder that practice, intuition and team building are all important elements of a successful law practice, says Jeff Wakolbinger at Bryan Cave.
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The Shifting Landscape Of Securities Class Action Fees
An analysis of recently settled cases shows that in addition to the settlement size, plaintiffs counsel in securities class actions appear to be rewarded for good settlement outcomes relative to a statistical prediction, with certain outcomes for the motion to dismiss and motion for class certification also affecting attorney fees awarded, says Edward Flores at NERA Economic Consulting.
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Reverse Proffers In Federal Criminal Cases Can Be A Win-Win
The increasingly popular reverse proffer — in which prosecutors disclose evidence to targets of a criminal investigation — can help the government test its case and persuade witnesses to cooperate, and can help defendants sharpen their strategies and obtain favorable deals by choosing to cooperate, say Jeffrey Martino and Byron Tuyay at Baker McKenzie.
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The SEC's Cooled Down But Still Spicy Private Fund Rules
Timothy Spangler and Lindsay Trapp at Dechert consider recently finalized U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules, which significantly alter the scope of obligations private fund advisers must meet under the Investment Advisers Act, noting the absence of several contentious proposals and litigation that could result in implementation delays.
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Breaking Down High Court's New Code Of Conduct
The U.S. Supreme Court recently adopted its first-ever code of conduct, and counsel will need to work closely with clients in navigating its provisions, from gift-giving to recusal bids, say Phillip Gordon and Mateo Forero at Holtzman Vogel.
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High Court's Chevron Review May Be A Crypto Game-Changer
The outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court's review of the Chevron doctrine in its pending Loper v. Raimondo case will potentially usher in a paradigm shift in cryptocurrency regulation, challenging agency authority and raising hopes for a recalibrated approach that favors judicial interpretation, says Sylvia Favretto at Mysten Labs.