Securities

  • August 29, 2024

    Feds Say Ex-BigLaw Atty Can't Shake OneCoin Conviction

    Federal prosecutors have told the Second Circuit that former Locke Lord LLP partner Mark S. Scott has "greatly exaggerate[d]" the importance of testimony from a government witness, some of which was later shown to be perjury, in a bid to have his money laundering conviction reversed.

  • August 29, 2024

    Nasdaq To Pay $22M CFTC Fine Over Incentive Program

    The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission slapped Nasdaq Futures Inc. with a $22 million fine Thursday based on allegations that the now-shuttered derivatives exchange failed to disclose an incentive program for high-volume traders.

  • August 28, 2024

    Calif. Assembly OKs 1st-Of-Its-Kind AI Safety Bill

    California lawmakers on Wednesday approved a groundbreaking proposal that would set safety and security standards for large artificial intelligence models.

  • August 28, 2024

    TikTok Moderation Co. Can't Beat Investor Suit Over Exposés

    A Florida federal judge ruled Wednesday that TikTok content moderation company Teleperformance must face a pension fund's proposed class action alleging that investors were harmed after investigative reports were published claiming that the company was working its staff into the ground and forcing them to watch harmful content with no support.

  • August 28, 2024

    SEC Says Repeat Offenders Ran Medical Co. Investment Scam

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a settlement with one of two men it accused of inflating the price of a healthcare company before an initial public offering with a shell company, saying he has violated a trading bar from the agency's previous suit against him.

  • August 28, 2024

    BofA Units Fined $3M Over Trade Surveillance Compliance

    Two Bank of America units have agreed to pay $3 million to settle the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's claims that they did not sufficiently safeguard against potentially manipulative trading by customers.

  • August 28, 2024

    Capital One Says Merger's Pending Approval Tanks Challenge

    Capital One urged a Virginia federal judge to toss or pause a lawsuit challenging the bank's proposed $35 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services, saying the suit's claims are too speculative and contingent on unknown future events since they depend entirely on the acquisition receiving regulatory and government approval.

  • August 28, 2024

    SEC To Embattled NC Insurance Exec: Show Us The Money

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to force a convicted insurance mogul at the center of an alleged $57 million fraud to tell it what happened to the money he's accused of stealing from the insurance companies he ran, arguing in a North Carolina federal court that his answers thus far don't add up and that he shouldn't be allowed to rely on them at his upcoming trial.

  • August 28, 2024

    Boston Consulting Group Avoids FCPA Prosecution, Feds Say

    The U.S. Department of Justice has declined to prosecute Boston Consulting Group Inc. for former employees' alleged bribery of Angolan officials because of the management consulting firm's self-disclosure of the misconduct, as well as its cooperation, remediation and disgorgement of more than $14.4 million.

  • August 28, 2024

    Walgreens Brass Hid Pharmacy Division Woes, Suit Says

    Walgreens' directors and officers have been hit with a derivative suit by a shareholder who says the company and its executives inflated stock value by publicly expressing confidence in the pharmacy division's growth while hiding its struggles adapting to industry hurdles.

  • August 28, 2024

    NFT Platform OpenSea Says SEC May Bring Registration Suit

    The CEO of nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea said Wednesday that the firm was ready to "stand up and fight" after it received a notice that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was considering an enforcement action claiming that the "creative goods" on its platform are unregistered securities.

  • August 28, 2024

    Bowl America Board Strikes $2.2M Deal To End Merger Suit

    Bowl America board members have agreed to pay nearly $2.2 million to settle a class action that alleged the company's board of directors acted in bad faith when it approved a merger with Bowlero Corp., according to a proposal submitted to a Maryland federal court.

  • August 28, 2024

    Billionaire Vik Says Deutsche Bank's 'Harassment' Must End

    Deutsche Bank AG's Connecticut state court lawsuit against billionaire Alexander Vik and his daughter is a doomed effort to relitigate issues that were already decided in a 2013 case that likewise sprang from the bank's global legal battle to collect a $243 million foreign judgment, the defendants said in seeking an early win.

  • August 28, 2024

    Conn. Investment Firm Withheld Pay, Commissions, Suit Says

    Six former employees of Connecticut investment advisory firm Excel Wealth Management LLC have sued the company and its members in state court seeking hourly wages or commissions they claimed they were never paid, with some alleging they were terminated for speaking out about their compensation.  

  • August 28, 2024

    SEC Omits 'Swing Pricing' Plan From Fund Disclosure Rules

    A divided U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday agreed to require more detailed and frequent disclosures from mutual funds, though regulators dropped plans — at least for now — to implement a controversial "swing pricing" provision.

  • August 28, 2024

    AI Software Co. Must Face SEC's $108M Pyramid Scheme Suit

    A Florida federal judge has refused to toss a suit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against the owners of a multilevel marketing company, accusing them of running a fraudulent and unregistered securities offering that raised roughly $108 million from claims that they are using artificial intelligence to develop software, saying the SEC has sufficiently pleaded the existence of a scheme, among other things.

  • August 28, 2024

    Farella Braun Can Pursue Unpaid SVB Fees From FDIC

    Farella Braun & Martel LLP can go after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for $49,000 in legal fees owed by Silicon Valley Bank's parent after the agency was appointed as the bank's receiver, a California federal judge ruled Wednesday.

  • August 28, 2024

    Congress Urged To Address Trump Financial Conflicts

    After possible financial conflicts of interest caused consternation during President Donald Trump's first term, an ethics watchdog is calling for a series of legislative reforms to prevent them from recurring if he's reelected.

  • August 28, 2024

    Biotech Biz Hid Risks Of Gene-Editing Trial, Investor Claims

    Biotechnology firm Verve Therapeutics was hit with a proposed class suit alleging it misled investors about the risks associated with a clinical trial of an experimental gene-editing drug that was halted and caused the company's stock to tumble.

  • August 28, 2024

    Cooley Adds O'Melveny Securities Litigation, Fintech Pro In LA

    Cooley LLP has expanded its California team, announcing Wednesday it has brought in an O'Melveny & Myers LLP securities litigation and fintech expert as a partner in its Los Angeles office.

  • August 27, 2024

    Wells Fargo Says 'Good Faith' Efforts Ax Investors' Bias Suit

    Wells Fargo & Co. urged a California federal judge Tuesday to toss a derivative lawsuit filed by a putative class of shareholders claiming the bank's board of directors failed to address its discriminatory lending and hiring practices, saying there's evidence of "good-faith" efforts to monitor compliance in those areas.

  • August 27, 2024

    Exec To Pay SEC $190K Over Macquarie Insider Trading Claim

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says a New York man who used inside information he learned as a Macquarie Group investor relations executive to profit from a then-pending deal to sell its airport services business to KKR & Co. has agreed to pay nearly $190,000 to settle the agency's claims that he violated securities laws. ​

  • August 27, 2024

    Electric Jet Co. Grounds Investor Suit Over SPAC Disclosures

    Investors in German aerospace company Lilium have failed to adequately allege that the company lied about its electric jet production efforts as it went through a $3.3 billion go-public merger with a special purpose acquisition company, a Florida federal judge determined in permanently tossing the suit.

  • August 27, 2024

    Reddit Beats Pay-Per-Click Advertising Class Action, For Now

    Reddit Inc. has defeated, for now, LevelFields Inc.'s proposed contract breach class action alleging that it charged advertising customers for fake "clicks" that didn't result in corresponding traffic to the advertiser's website after a California federal judge said Tuesday that the plaintiff doesn't identify specific contractual provisions it thinks Reddit violated. 

  • August 27, 2024

    Navy Shipbuilder Pleads Guilty To Accounting Fraud

    A shipbuilder that contracts with the U.S. Navy pled guilty Tuesday to accounting fraud as part of a settlement to resolve criminal and civil investigations.

Expert Analysis

  • A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates

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    Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.

  • A Checklist For Lenders Preparing For CRE Loan Defaults

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    Considering the recent interest rate environment, lenders should brush up on the proper steps that they should take when preparing to respond to a borrower's default on a commercial real estate loan, and borrowers should understand what lenders will be reviewing, says attorney Norma Williams.

  • Opinion

    Discount Window Reform Needed To Curb Modern Bank Runs

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    We learned during the spring 2023 failures that bank runs can happen extraordinarily fast in light of modern technology, especially when banks have a greater concentration of large deposits, demonstrating that the antiquated but effective discount window needs to be overhauled before the next crisis, says Cris Cicala at Stinson.

  • Series

    In The CFPB Playbook: Making Good On Bold Promises

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure in the second quarter cleared the way for the bureau to resume a number of high-priority initiatives, and it appears poised to charge ahead in working toward its aggressive preelection agenda, say Andrew Arculin and Paula Vigo Marqués at Blank Rome.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Creating New Hurdles For ESG Rulemaking

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, limiting court deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, could have significant impacts on the future of ESG regulation, creating new hurdles for agency rulemaking around these emerging issues, and calling into question current administrative actions, says Leah Malone at Simpson Thacher.

  • Opinion

    States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions

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    Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.

  • Navigating The Extent Of SEC Cybersecurity Breach Authority

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's broad reading of its authority under Section 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act in the R.R. Donnelley and SolarWinds actions has ramifications for companies dealing with cybersecurity breaches, but it remains to be seen whether the commission's use of the provision will withstand judicial scrutiny, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • Best Text Practices In Light Of Terraform's $4.5B Fraud Deal

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    Text messages were extremely important in a recent civil trial against Terraform Labs, leading to a $4.5 billion settlement, so litigants in securities fraud cases need to have robust mobile data policies that address the content and retention of messages, and the obligations of employees to allow for collection, say Josh Sohn and Alicia Clausen at Crowell & Moring.

  • Series

    Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.

  • Dapper Settlement Offers Rules Of The Road For NFT Issuers

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    The terms of a $4 million settlement in a class action alleging that Dapper Labs sold its NBA Top Shot Moments as unregistered securities may be a model for third parties that wish to avoid securities liability in connection with offering digital asset non-fungible token collectibles, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice

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    The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.

  • Navigating The New Rise Of Greenwashing Litigation

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    As greenwashing lawsuits continue to gain momentum with a shift in focus to carbon-neutrality claims, businesses must exercise caution and ensure transparency in their environmental marketing practices, taking cues from recent legal challenges in the airline industry, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State

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    On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.

  • How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.

  • First-Of-Its-Kind Chancery Ruling Will Aid SPAC Defendants

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    The Delaware Chancery Court's first full dismissal of claims challenging a special purpose acquisition company transaction under the entire fairness doctrine in the recent Hennessy Capital Acquisition Stockholder Litigation establishes useful precedent to abate the flood of SPAC litigation, say Lisa Bugni and Benjamin Lee at King & Spalding.

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