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Mealey's Securities

  • May 20, 2025

    Pension Fund Seeks Rehearing En Banc Of Securities Case Against Gaming Company

    PASADENA, Calif. — A pension fund filed a petition for rehearing en banc with the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, arguing that a panel was wrong to affirm the dismissal of its class action suit alleging that a gaming company it invested in falsely inflated its share prices by finding that it needed to plead loss causation as part of its stock scheme claims.

  • May 19, 2025

    Judge Denies SEC’s Motion To Lift Injunction Against Crypto Asset Firm

    NEW YORK — A federal judge denied a joint letter motion filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission asking the judge to dissolve an injunction against crypto asset firm Ripple Labs Inc. and order that all but $50 million of the civil penalty Ripple was ordered to pay to the SEC be paid back.  The motion was made in connection with a settlement reached between the two parties.

  • May 16, 2025

    5th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Derivatives Suit Against Fracking Company

    NEW ORLEANS — A panel of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a shareholder derivative suit alleging an energy company’s directors breached their fiduciary duties in overseeing the company’s efforts to comply with environmental laws and regulations after the discovery that its hydraulic fracturing work caused methane gas to leak into residential water supplies in Dimock Township, Pa., agreeing with the trial court’s findings that the directors did not act in bad faith.

  • May 15, 2025

    Wells Fargo Petitions 9th Circuit Over Class Certification In Stock Loss Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — Wells Fargo & Co. petitioned the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for permission to appeal a California federal judge’s order granting class certification to a group of shareholders in their suit filed against Wells Fargo and certain of its executives after news of the company’s practice of using fake interviews to give the impression of complying with internal diversity hiring practices led to a drop in stock value, arguing the investors had not provided evidence that their damages can be measured on a classwide basis.

  • May 13, 2025

    SEC Reaches Settlement With Crypto Firm, Seeks Lifting Of Injunction, Penalty

    NEW YORK — The Securities and Exchange Commission reached a settlement with crypto asset firm Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives, agreeing to ask a federal court in New York to dissolve an injunction against Ripple and to order all but $50 million of the civil penalty Ripple was ordered to pay to the SEC be paid back to Ripple, which the court ordered after finding the cryptocurrencies sold by Ripple were effectively unregistered securities.

  • May 13, 2025

    Insurer Says COVID Fallout, Not AI Scheme, Behind Securities’ Class Allegations

    NEW YORK — CVS Health Corp. faced the same trends in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as other insurers, and it was those difficulties that impacted post-acute care prior authorization denials and the company’s economic performance, not an attempt to divest itself of an illicit artificial intelligence scheme in response to changes in the Medicare program, an insurer tells a federal judge in New York in seeking dismissal of a securities action.

  • May 12, 2025

    9th Circuit Affirms Ruling In Insurer’s Favor In Suit Prompted By SEC Investigation

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 9 affirmed a lower federal court’s ruling in favor of an insurer in an insured’s lawsuit seeking coverage for its underlying expenses arising from a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation, finding the insured failed to produce evidence that the SEC's investigation and the insured’s ensuing litigation costs “grew out of, flowed from, or bore any causal relationship to the SEC's notice of its intent to depose” one of the insured’s directors.

  • May 08, 2025

    COMMENTARY: New Era At The SEC: Key Priorities Under Chair Paul Atkins

    By A. Valerie Mirko, Jennifer R. Byrne, Donald D. McBride, Noelle E. Mack and Elkie Inglis

  • May 08, 2025

    Final Approval Given To Settlement In Alleged Ponzi Scheme Involvement Suit

    PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon granted final approval to a $90,000 settlement between investors who lost money to an alleged Ponzi scheme and two of the entities they allege aided the scheme.

  • May 08, 2025

    Company Waives Right To Answer Petition On Whether It Can Bring Short-Swing Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A micro-robotic technology company on May 7 waived its right to respond to an investor’s petition for a writ of certiorari that asks the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether the company has Article III standing to bring a case against him for the disgorgement of short-swing profits for violating Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

  • May 08, 2025

    $46M Pharmaceutical Company Stock-Drop Suit Gets Final Approval

    TRENTON, N.J. — A $46 million settlement between current and former executives and members of the board of directors of a pharmaceutical company that went bankrupt during the proceeding and investors who alleged that the company violated federal securities law by making material misstatements that caused the price of the company’s stock to be artificially inflated has been granted final approval by a federal magistrate judge in New Jersey.

  • May 07, 2025

    Final Approval Granted To $362.5M Settlement In Securities Action Against GE

    NEW YORK — A $362.5 million settlement between General Electric Co. and investors who alleged that the company violated federal securities laws in relation to its representations regarding its power division’s factoring of long-term receivables was given final approval by a federal judge in New York.

  • May 06, 2025

    SEC Says Disgorgement, Materiality Questions Don’t Warrant High Court Review

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5 asked the U.S. Supreme Court not to grant certiorari to an investment officer and his investment firm asking the court to address questions regarding the award of disgorgement and clarity regarding materiality of alleged misrepresentations under the Investment Advisors Act of 1940, arguing that the questions don’t warrant the high court’s review.

  • May 06, 2025

    SEC Voluntarily Dismisses Case Against Crypto Asset Influencer

    AUSTIN, Texas — The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a joint stipulation dismissing its case against a crypto asset influencer for selling an unregistered security by selling crypto tokens to investors from a pool he controlled.

  • May 02, 2025

    SEC Voluntarily Dismisses Unregistered Crypto Assets Securities Offerings Suit

    SEATTLE— The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it has voluntarily dismissed a suit it brought against three entities and their founder for allegedly raising $16.5 million in unregistered crypto asset securities offerings.

  • May 02, 2025

    Investment Firm Says Shale Producers Conspired To Fix Oil Prices, Violated Laws

    CHICAGO — An investment firm has filed a putative class action against multiple oil companies in Illinois federal court alleging that they violated antitrust law and the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) by engaging in a conspiracy to coordinate, and ultimately constrain, domestic shale oil production through fixing the price of oil and crude oil futures contracts.

  • May 02, 2025

    Panel: Firm Not Required To Arbitrate With Employee’s Allegedly Defrauded Investors

    PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that retirees who invested in an alleged Ponzi scheme run by a securities firm’s employee were not entitled to arbitration under the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s arbitration rules because the retirees failed to demonstrate that they had transacted with the employee, affirming a lower court’s ruling.

  • May 02, 2025

    Judge Dismisses Channel-Stuffing Suit Against Driver Safety Technology Provider

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York dismissed a putative securities class action brought by investors alleging that an advanced driver-assistance systems technology company and its executives made misleading statements about the company’s minimum-order contracts that the investors claimed artificially inflated the price of the company’s stock, finding that the investors failed to allege that the company made any material misstatements that would support scheme liability.

  • April 30, 2025

    Class Certification Granted In Stock Loss Suit Over ‘Sham’ Wells Fargo Interviews

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted class certification to a group of shareholders in their suit against Wells Fargo & Co. and certain of its executives after news of the company’s practice of using fake interviews to give the impression of complying with internal diversity hiring practices led to a drop in stock value, finding that the shareholders satisfied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23’s class certification requirements.

  • April 28, 2025

    No Basis For High Court To Hear FINRA Constitutionality Case, Authority Argues

    \WASHINGTON, D.C.— The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) on April 25 filed a brief in opposition to a brokerage firm’s petition for certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to address the authority’s constitutionality, as well as what constitutes an irreparable injury for the purpose of a preliminary injunction, arguing that there is no split among circuit courts on either question that the firm is asking the court to address.

  • April 28, 2025

    Jury Reaches Verdict In SEC’s Advisers Act Against Investment Adviser, Firm

    BOSTON — A federal jury in Massachusetts found that an investment adviser and his advisory firm had violated Section 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act, finding the Securities and Exchange Commission proved that the adviser and firm hadn’t disclosed significant upfront commissions and other conflicts of interest.

  • April 28, 2025

    Citing Presumption Of Access, 6th Circuit Vacates Order Keeping Transcripts Sealed

    CINCINNATI — A trial court’s failure to explain why it maintained the seal on certain deposition transcripts in a settled securities lawsuit is not sufficient to overcome the presumption of openness in litigation, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, reversing a ruling partly denying an intervenor newspaper’s motion to unseal the documents in the lawsuit, which was closed more than two years ago, and remanding for the lower court to make the proper determination “as to whether any parts of those transcripts meet the requirements for a seal.”

  • April 25, 2025

    SEC’s Fraud Case Against Investment Report Publisher, Adviser Entity To Continue

    LOS ANGELES — The Securities and Exchange Commission’s case alleging that a publisher of investment reports and the investment adviser entity he operated perpetrated a fraudulent scheme using the investment reports will continue after a federal judge in California found that, at this stage, the SEC sufficiently pleaded its fraud scheme and fraudulent statement claims.

  • April 24, 2025

    SEC Brings Claims Against Crypto Asset, Foreign Exchange Trading Company Founder

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint in federal court in Virginia against the founder of a now-defunct entity that the SEC says claimed to be a crypto asset and foreign exchange trading company alleging that it orchestrated an international securities fraud scheme that raised $198 million and misappropriated more than $57 million of investor funds.

  • April 23, 2025

    Judge Allows Suit Seeking Recovery Of $47M In Short-Swing Profits To Continue

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York allowed a suit brought by the entity formerly known as Bed Bath and Beyond Inc. seeking to recover more than $47 million in short-swing profits realized by an investor and his company by selling Bed Bath and Beyond common stock in violation of federal securities laws to continue, finding that at this stage in the litigation the entity has provided sufficient evidence showing the defendants qualified as statutory insiders under a beneficial ownership theory of liability, but not under a directors by deputization theory of liability.