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Securities
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April 16, 2024
Latham Adds 2 Simpson Thacher Attys To Its NY Office
Latham & Watkins LLP has added two attorneys from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP for its New York office, one of whom joins as co-chair of its global hybrid capital practice.
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April 16, 2024
Chancery Tosses Zelle Fraud Suit Against JPMorgan Directors
A JPMorgan Chase & Co. shareholder that sued the bank's board for allegedly ignoring fraud on the payment platform Zelle has not shown the bank failed to respond to the problem, a Delaware Chancery Court judge ruled Tuesday, dismissing the shareholder's case.
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April 15, 2024
Ex-Autonomy Exec Testifies To Handshake Deals, Backdating
Autonomy's former U.S. head of sales testified for the prosecution Monday in the criminal fraud trial of founder Michael Lynch, saying he boosted sales figures via "quid pro quo" handshake deals with customers, created pretextual emails to cover his tracks and even backdated a deal to meet revenue targets.
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April 15, 2024
Structured Deposits Recalled In Ex-Ecuadorian Official's Trial
A bookkeeper testified Monday in Miami federal court that he conducted a series of structured deposits and other suspicious transactions while working at a tile company owned by the son of Ecuador's former comptroller general, who's accused of laundering millions of dollars in bribes from Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA.
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April 15, 2024
Taro Inks $36M Investor Deal Over Generics Price-Fixing
Taro Pharmaceutical Industries shareholders asked a New York federal judge Monday to greenlight a $36 million settlement resolving proposed class claims that the company misled investors about alleged generic drug price-fixing that led to a drop in stock price upon news of a U.S. Department of Justice antitrust investigation.
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April 15, 2024
Trump Media Files To Register More Shares For Potential Sale
The newly public owner of former President Trump's social media platform Truth Social filed paperwork on Monday to issue an additional 21.5 million shares and register for resale about 146 million existing shares, including a large stake owned by Trump.
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April 15, 2024
SEC Scores Win In $119M Rochester, NY Muni Bond Suit
A New York federal judge on Monday granted an early win to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on its claims against an advisory and its two principals who were involved in a $119 million bond offering by the city of Rochester, New York, saying the firm failed to disclose conflicts of interest present in its fee arrangements.
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April 15, 2024
'Pig Butchering' Scams' Human Toll Has Experts Alarmed
Financial institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges and social media companies need to do more to stem a growing tide of so-called pig butchering scams, which experts at the OffshoreAlert Conference in Miami said Monday are wreaking havoc on victims while funding a large human trafficking operation.
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April 15, 2024
SEC Fines Adviser $60K Over Alleged Pay-To-Play Violations
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that a Minnesota-based investment advisory firm will pay $60,000 to settle allegations it violated the commission's pay-to-play rule, which prohibits investment advisers from providing services to government-related clients for two years following a political campaign contribution.
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April 15, 2024
Justices Leave Lower Courts To Parse Corporate 'Half-Truths'
A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that corporate silence isn't enough to form the basis of a securities fraud suit pointedly declined to wade into the question of what counts as a "half-truth," leaving it to lower courts to wrestle with which corporate statements are blurry enough to sustain a shareholder class action.
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April 15, 2024
Mich. High Court To Hear Siblings' Ski Share Valuation Fight
A sibling feud between the CEO of a family-run ski resort company and his sister, a minority shareholder, will get a hearing in front of the Michigan Supreme Court after the justices agreed to look at whether the company honored an agreement for redemption of shares in the family company.
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April 15, 2024
Chancery Denies Forte Biosciences' Bid To Toss Investor Suit
Board members of a struggling clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company who allegedly took defensive measures to stay in power after activist investors pushed the company to liquidate must face a stockholder's Delaware Chancery Court derivative suit that they breached their fiduciary duties to shareholders, a vice chancellor said Monday.
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April 15, 2024
Barclays To Pay FINRA Fine Over Research Analysts Conflicts
Broker-dealer Barclays Capital Inc. will pay a $700,000 fine to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority after it self-reported two issues involving alleged conflicts of interest on the part of its research analysts, FINRA has announced.
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April 15, 2024
Solar Power Co. Accuses Ex-Insider Of Building, Selling Rival
Delaware-chartered solar energy venture Volt Energy Utility LLC has sued a former top officer in Chancery Court, alleging that while employed by Volt, she secretly launched a competing company, contacted Volt's lenders and customers and then sold the new business to a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. for $216 million.
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April 15, 2024
Years After Args, 7th Circ. Continues Mootness Fee Attack
A Seventh Circuit panel said Monday that a Chicago federal judge improperly barred a class action objector from intervening in a suit involving controversial "mootness fees" the appellate court has long criticized, saying he failed to articulate a valid legal reason for doing so.
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April 15, 2024
Coinbase Wants 2nd Circ. To Weigh Crypto's Howey Question
Crypto exchange Coinbase has asked a Manhattan federal judge to send the question of whether digital assets meet the definition of investment contracts to the Second Circuit, challenging a March order that found the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had adequately pled that the platform offered securities.
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April 15, 2024
Canadian Supplement Co.'s Sale Hits Ch. 15 Snag In Del.
A Delaware bankruptcy judge appeared skeptical Monday that an American judge can weigh in on a dispute over rights to Canadian assets, as counsel for a troubled nutritional supplement supplier based in Canada argued for U.S. recognition of a sale order from an insolvency court in its home country.
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April 15, 2024
Apple Faces Two Suits Over IPhone Market Dominance
Apple has been hit with a pair of suits alleging it has unfairly stifled competition in the smartphone market and that its practices and iPhone sales have violated federal securities and antitrust laws.
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April 15, 2024
Feds Say $3.5M 'Cryptojacking' Scam Targeted Cloud Services
A Nebraska man defrauded two cloud computing services of $3.5 million and used the proceeds to mine an additional $1 million in cryptocurrency, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said Monday.
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April 15, 2024
Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court
Last week, Delaware justices mulled whether one Chancery Court vice chancellor properly voided four company bylaws — just as another vice chancellor voided one more. Fights among Truth Social investors continued, and shareholders launched new cases involving Macy's, United Airlines, and Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC and Stone Point Capital LLC.
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April 15, 2024
Endeavor Group's $13B Take-Private Deal Challenged In Del.
A Swedish bank has sued to block a $13 billion take-private sale of sports and entertainment conglomerate Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., branding the deal a prohibited minority stockholder squeeze-out tilted heavily toward large investors and insiders, including controller and global private equity firm Silver Lake.
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April 15, 2024
Republican AGs Ask 5th Circ. To Knock Out DOL Rule For ESG
A group of Republican-led states have urged the Fifth Circuit to scrap a U.S. Department of Labor rule allowing retirement advisers to consider social and political issues when choosing investments, arguing that the agency is flouting protections set in stone by federal benefits law.
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April 15, 2024
Senators Demand Info On CFTC Chats With Bankman-Fried
Two U.S. senators have asked the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's chair to detail all of his communications and meetings with convicted FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
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April 15, 2024
Justices Won't Review Ex-NYC Union Head's Bribery Rap
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the appeal of a former New York City union president who was convicted of taking bribes from now-defunct hedge fund Platinum Partners, rejecting a petition that argued his attorney failed to tell him about the trial judge's conflicts of interest.
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April 12, 2024
Jane Street Says Millennium, Ex-Workers Stole Trade Secrets
Trading firm Jane Street Group LLC sued rival Millennium Management LLC and two former employees in New York federal court Friday, alleging they stole a confidential trading strategy and have reaped "massive profits from this theft."
Expert Analysis
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How High Court SEC Case Could Affect The ITC
While the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy will likely spare the U.S. International Trade Commission from major operative changes, the ITC’s ability to issue penalties for violations of its orders may change, say Gwendolyn Tawresey and Ryan Deck at Troutman Pepper.
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Open Questions After Elastos Crypto Class Action Settlement
The recent settlement in Owen v. Elastos Foundation resolving a class action fight over whether Elastos was required to register an initial coin offering with U.S. regulators has raised several questions that may be of interest to lawyers litigating cryptocurrency-related cases, including whether a crypto token constitutes a security under U.S. law, says Bradley Simon at Schlam Stone.
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Del. Segway Dismissal Suggests Execs Not Liable For Biz Risk
While the debate continues within the Delaware Chancery Court over whether Caremark liability applies to matters of pure business risk, the court's recent rejection of Segway’s suit against the ex-president who oversaw financial difficulties suggests the court is uninterested in undermining the deference the business judgment rule grants corporate fiduciaries, say attorneys at Dechert.
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$32.4M Fine For Info Disclosure Is A Stark Warning For Banks
The New York State Department of Financial Services and the Federal Reserve's fining of a Chinese state-owned bank $32.4 million last month underscores the need for financial institutions to have policies and procedures in place to handle confidential supervisory information, say attorneys at Sidley.
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Exxon ESG Proxy Statement Suit May Chill Investor Proposals
Exxon Mobil’s recent use of a Texas federal lawsuit to intimidate shareholders into withdrawing a climate-friendly proxy proposal could inspire more public companies to sue to avoid adopting ESG resolutions — a power move that would chill activist investor participation and unbalance shareholder-corporate relations, say Domenico Minerva and James Fee at Labaton Keller.
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Series
Coaching High School Wrestling Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Coaching my son’s high school wrestling team has been great fun, but it’s also demonstrated how a legal career can benefit from certain experiences, such as embracing the unknown, studying the rules and engaging with new people, says Richard Davis at Maynard Nexsen.
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Implications For Digital Assets After SEC Settlement With DAO
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's December settlement with BarnBridge — finding that the decentralized autonomous organization's products were securities under federal law — foreshadows increased enforcement attention on digital assets, and reveals arguments the SEC may use in similar disputes with decentralized finance protocols, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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SG's Office Is Case Study To Help Close Legal Gender Gap
As women continue to be underrepresented in the upper echelons of the legal profession, law firms could learn from the example set by the Office of the Solicitor General, where culture and workplace policies have helped foster greater gender equality, say attorneys at Ocean Tomo.
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Bitcoin ETF Approval Doesn't Mean SEC Approves Of Crypto
While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's approval last month of 11 applications for spot exchange-traded funds tracking bitcoin is a landmark moment for the crypto-asset industry, investors who are hopeful that the SEC will approve similar crypto-based ETFs may be disappointed, says attorneys at Mintz.
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A Closer Look At Novel Jury Instruction In Forex Rigging Case
After the recent commodities fraud conviction of a U.K.-based hedge fund executive in U.S. v. Phillips, post-trial briefing has focused on whether the New York federal court’s jury instruction incorrectly defined the requisite level of intent, which should inform defense counsel in future open market manipulation cases, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert.
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Reducing Carbon Footprint Requires A Tricky Path For CRE
As real estate owners find themselves caught between rapidly evolving environmental, social and governance initiatives and complicated societal debate, they will need to carefully establish formal plans to remain both competitive and compliant, say Michael Kuhn and Mahira Khan at Jackson Walker.
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Del.'s Tesla Pay Takedown Tells Boards What Not To Do
The Delaware Chancery Court’s ruthless dissection of the Tesla board’s extreme departures from standard corporate governance in its January opinion striking down CEO Elon Musk’s $55 billion pay package offers a blow-by-blow guide to mistakes Delaware public companies can avoid when negotiating executive compensation, say attorneys at Cleary.
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The Corporate Disclosure Tug-Of-War's Free Speech Issues
The continuing conflict over corporate disclosure requirements — highlighted by a lawsuit against Missouri's anti-ESG rules — has important implications not just for investors and regulated entities but also for broader questions about the scope of the First Amendment, say Colin Pohlman, and Jane Luxton and Paul Kisslinger at Lewis Brisbois.
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What New Calif. Strike Force Means For White Collar Crimes
The recently announced Central District of California strike force targeting complex corporate and securities fraud — following the Northern District of California's model — combines experienced prosecutorial leadership and partnerships with federal agencies like the IRS and FBI, and could result in an uptick in the number of cases and speed of proceedings, say attorneys at MoFo.
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Del. Dispatch: Clarification On Fiduciary Duties Of Controllers
The Delaware Chancery Court’s January opinion in a Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores' stockholder dispute — holding that a controlling stockholder owes the company and minority shareholders some fiduciary duties when selling shares or voting to change the status quo — suggests instances where investors opposing board decisions should tread carefully, say attorneys at Fried Frank.