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Securities
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May 21, 2013
Chevron Sues Sunoco Over Texas Pipeline Deal
A unit of Chevron Corp. fired off a derivative lawsuit Monday in Delaware Chancery Court on behalf of West Texas Gulf Pipeline Co. and against a subsidiary of Sunoco Inc., alleging that Sunoco's representatives on WTG's board approved an unfair pipeline lease.
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May 21, 2013
GOP Sens. Hammer Lew On IRS Targeting Scandal
Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew on Tuesday said he will push regulators to speed up finishing capital, proprietary trading and other Dodd-Frank Act-mandated rules even as questions over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups dominated his appearance before a Senate panel.
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May 21, 2013
Venable Shouldn't Shake $11M Facebook IPO Suit, ESG Says
ESG Capital Partners argued on Monday that a legal malpractice suit against Venable LLP should stick, alleging that the law firm helped a known con man defraud the investment manager of $11.2 million by falsely promising to secure ESG pre-IPO Facebook shares.
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May 21, 2013
Ex-SAC Trader Lashes Back At Feds In $276M Tipping Case
Former SAC Capital Advisors LLP portfolio manager Mathew Martoma told a New York federal court Monday that prosecutors were trying to “have it both ways” by insisting their $276 million insider trading case was focused on specific deals in July 2008, but also included allegations dating back to 2006.
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May 21, 2013
Former DBSI Brass Deny Ponzi Scheme Charges
The former general counsel and two executives of bankrupt DBSI Inc. pled not guilty to fraud charges in Idaho federal court Monday, following accusations that they were running a Ponzi scheme under the guise of a supposedly profitable real estate investment company.
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May 21, 2013
LPL Financial Penalized $9M For Email System Failures
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority on Tuesday hit LPL Financial LLC, the largest independent broker-dealer in the U.S., with $9 million in penalties over outdated email systems that left regulators and others unable to access some of the broker-dealer’s correspondence.
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May 20, 2013
Strine Tells Wal-Mart To Dig Deeper For Mexican Bribery Docs
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. must conduct a more detailed search for documents requested by an institutional investor seeking information about how the retailer's board handled allegations of bribery by its Mexican affiliate, Delaware Chancellor Leo E. Strine Jr. said Monday.
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May 20, 2013
Michaels Fights To Avoid Legal Fees In $550M Wyly Fraud
A Texas state judge on Monday said Michaels Stores Inc. has the right to limited information about what one of its former board of directors has disclosed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about his role in an alleged fraud before ponying up more than $1 million for his legal defense.
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May 20, 2013
SAC Indictment Would Put Feds In Uncharted Waters
As rumors swirled Monday that prosecutors might indict Steven Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors LLP, defense attorneys called the move highly unusual for an insider trading case focused on individual wrongdoing.
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May 20, 2013
Duane Morris Adds Orrick Partner To NY Corporate Group
Duane Morris LLP's New York corporate practice group is adding a new partner from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP who counsels investment banks and corporations on a range of securities issues, the firm announced Monday.
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May 20, 2013
High Court May Use SOX Case To Put DOL In Its Place
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear its first-ever Sarbanes-Oxley Act whistleblower case, in which it might not only decide whether SOX's anti-retaliation provision covers employees at private contractors of public companies, but also clarify how much deference courts should afford agencies like the U.S. Department of Labor when it comes to interpreting the law, attorneys say.
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May 20, 2013
Fighting Agencies May Be Tougher After High Court Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court's Monday ruling in favor of the Federal Communications Commission, which held that courts should apply a deferential standard of review when federal agencies interpret the limits of their own authority, may make it tougher for regulated businesses to fight agency actions, attorneys say.
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May 20, 2013
Dallas Brokerage Fends Off RICO Claim For Trade Fees
A Texas judge on Monday said two independent brokers at S&P Investors Inc. haven’t yet proven their allegations the principal of a Dallas brokerage firm intentionally stole from them by overcharging for a decade the fees charged against their trade commissions.
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May 20, 2013
Lew Likely To Face Flak Over IRS, Not Financial Rules
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is scheduled to address potential risks to the financial system when he appears before Congress this week, but the growing scandal over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups threatens to overshadow his eagerly anticipated faceoff with lawmakers over everything from systemically important financial institutions to money market fund reform.
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May 20, 2013
Tessera Proxy's Write-In Option Draws SEC's Eye
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has objected to Tessera Technologies Inc.'s efforts to let shareholders write in two dissident director nominees, a first-of-its-kind tussle set up by what some critics say are antiquated proxy voting rules.
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May 20, 2013
Exxon Can't Nix Ex-VP's $5M In Stock, Texas Justices Told
A former Exxon Mobil Corp. vice president on Friday told Texas’ highest court that compensation agreements he inked with the oil and gas giant allowing it to cancel $5 million in stock incentives he held after he went to work for a rival are unenforceable.
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May 20, 2013
Investors Give Libor Antitrust Claims Another Shot
Investors pushed Friday to revive their antitrust claims against Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other top banks accused of rigging the London Interbank Offered Rate as part of multidistrict litigation over the rate scandal.
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May 20, 2013
BMC Investor Sues To Block $7B Sale To Bain, Golden Gate
A BMC Software Inc. investor on Friday launched a proposed class action in Texas court, complaining that a planned $7 billion sale of the company to Bain Capital LLC and Golden Gate Capital shortchanges shareholders.
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May 20, 2013
Ex-Morgan Stanley Exec Fights Kickback Rap In 2nd Circ.
A former Morgan Stanley & Co. executive asked the Second Circuit on Monday to overturn a conviction on charges he steered stock-loan business to his family in exchange for kickbacks, arguing that some work was performed for the money.
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May 20, 2013
Baker Donelson, Dilworth Paxson DQ'd From Investment Suit
A Louisiana federal judge on Monday disqualified Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC and Dilworth Paxson LLP from representing foreign investors suing over a failed investment venture to help them get permanent residency, saying a Dilworth Paxson attorney had worked for the venture.
Expert Analysis
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Ralph Lauren: Inadequate Rewards For Exemplary Cooperation
Although the government will no doubt cite the recent Ralph Lauren Corp. nonprosecution agreements as an exemplar of the benefits of self-reporting and cooperation, we think they reaffirm the importance of careful consideration before a company decides to self-report potential unlawful conduct, say attorneys with Covington & Burling LLP.
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How To Run Team Meetings In Complex Cases — Part 1
Many litigation teams struggle with making good decisions and running effective team meetings for three reasons: compromised decision-making, lack of healthy meeting conflict, and lack of alternative meeting structures, says David Dolkas of McDermott Will & Emery LLP.
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SEC Tees Up Private Equity Enforcement Issues
Recent remarks by Bruce Karpati, chief of the Asset Management Unit of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as recent enforcement cases by the SEC, demonstrate an increased focus on the private equity sector — in particular, on aggressive fundraising disclosures, conflicts of interest and “zombie funds,” among other things, say Scott Naidech and Garrett Lynam of Chadbourne & Parke LLP.
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Forensic Analytics Can Find Needles In Multiple Haystacks
Forensic analytics is indispensable to any situation involving voluminous transactions or other large amounts of data. Yet, too few attorneys or organizations use, or maximize, forensic analytics to its fullest benefit. The recently publicized European soccer match-fixing scandal provides a handy illustration, say Jonny Frank and Alex Lefferts of StoneTurn Group LLP.
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Protect Your Company From FCPA Risks In Latin America
Latin America is an area of key concern for companies operating overseas and subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and has been for a number of years. The charges against four former employees of BizJet International Sales and Support Inc. are the latest reminder for companies to take steps to mitigate the corruption risk associated with doing business in the region, say attorneys with Fulbright & Jaworski LLP.
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New Directions For SEC's Insider Trading Program
What is striking about SEC v. Moore — an insider trading case against a Canadian investment banker who allegedly traded on nonpublic information that he "pieced together" — is that the facts allegedly observed by Moore, when viewed independently, are all seemingly immaterial. The mosaic theory, if not dead, may very well be on life support, say attorneys with Allen & Overy LLP.
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Del. Draws Line In The Sands Of Discovery
In resolving Morgans Hotel Group Co. Kalisman v. Friedman, the Delaware Court of Chancery carefully drew the line to allow discovery of communications between counsel and a special committee that the plaintiff-director was a member of, but shielded communications between counsel and a subcommittee on which the plaintiff-director did not serve, says Herbert Kozlov of Reed Smith LLP.
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An Outline Of SEC's Bold Enforcement Plan
Recent statements by newly confirmed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Jo White and other SEC officials suggest a strong enforcement effort in the coming years — and the Obama administration’s budget proposal for FY 2014 indicates that the commission likely will have the resources it needs to support this effort, say attorneys with Arnold & Porter LLP.
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Another Example Of The Benefits Of FCPA Self-Reporting
Ralph Lauren Corp.'s aggressive response to its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations led to nonprosecution agreements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, which demonstrates a continued focus by the government on securing and rewarding cooperation, say Jonathan Green and James Athas of Kaye Scholer LLP.
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Spotlight On Brazil: Courting International Investors
Alongside legal reform and a consolidation of institutions, self-regulatory initiatives have promoted a real improvement in corporate governance practices in Brazil. Such factors have also led to the creation of a more diffuse control of capital in Brazilian companies and the increased participation of active minority investors demanding professional, independent and transparent management bodies, says Silvia Fazio of Chadbourne & Parke LLP.