Securities

  • March 11, 2024

    Covington Holdout Drops SEC Cyberattack Appeal

    The anonymous Covington & Burling LLP client who objected to a demand that they reveal themselves to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a victim of a 2020 hack on the law firm agreed on Monday to drop the appeal of the subpoena enforcement action.

  • March 11, 2024

    SEC Can't Rely On 'Flawed' Ruling To Avoid Retrial, Atty Says

    A Connecticut lawyer facing retrial in a securities fraud case told the First Circuit that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission can't lean on a summary judgment finding that was also flawed.

  • March 11, 2024

    Accounting Oversight Board Trial Atty Joins King & Spalding

    The top trial attorney for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has joined King & Spalding LLP's special matters and government investigations group in Washington, D.C., as a partner, the firm announced Monday.

  • March 11, 2024

    US Chamber Backs Dismissal Of Citigroup 401(k) Suit

    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce backed Citigroup's efforts to shut down a suit in which workers claimed mismanagement of their 401(k) plan, telling a Connecticut federal court that these types of suits cherry-pick data and should not stand in court.

  • March 11, 2024

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    Delaware's Court of Chancery became a hot topic in New Orleans last week as litigators and judges at an annual convention acknowledged the First State's corporate law preeminence is under scrutiny. Back home, the court moved ahead on disputes involving Meta Platforms, Abercrombie & Fitch and Donald Trump.

  • March 11, 2024

    DOL Sends Fiduciary Rule Rewrite To White House

    The U.S. Department of Labor transmitted its retirement security proposal that would broaden the definition of who qualifies as a fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to a White House office for final review over the weekend.

  • March 09, 2024

    Trump's Truth Social Defuses Chancery Go-Public Fight

    If Truth Social issues any new shares before it goes public, they will be put into escrow account and no existing shareholder will be diluted, former President Donald Trump's social media company told Delaware's Court of Chancery on Saturday, ratcheting down a conflict with a minority shareholder.

  • March 08, 2024

    Trump 'An Existential Threat' To Rule Of Law, Attys Warn

    Former President Donald Trump represents an "existential threat" to democracy and the rule of law, legal experts said Friday at a conference on white collar crime in San Francisco.

  • March 08, 2024

    Stock Schemer Gets 5 Years For Fraud After 2nd Circ. Remand

    A New York federal judge on Friday re-sentenced a former registered broker to five years in prison for his role in a boiler room pump-and-dump scheme that targeted unwitting elderly investors after the Second Circuit found one year in prison "substantively unreasonable."

  • March 08, 2024

    Judge Keeps Novel Insider Trading Indictment Alive

    A California federal judge has refused to throw out a novel insider trading indictment against a former healthcare CEO, saying that the federal prosecutors provided sufficient information to sustain their allegations that the executive acted criminally by shedding millions of dollars worth of stock at the same time an important client relationship was nearing its end. 

  • March 08, 2024

    SEC's Climate Regs Face Multipronged Courtroom Attack

    The future of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's long-awaited corporate climate disclosure regulations is up in the air as the agency stares down lawsuits challenging its authority to promulgate the rules, with even more parties threatening to force the agency to defend its decision in court for years.

  • March 08, 2024

    DOJ Eyes FCPA For New Whistleblower Rewards Program

    U.S. Department of Justice officials on Friday signaled a renewed emphasis on fighting foreign corruption, saying its planned whistleblower rewards program should prove useful in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases against private companies, and warned companies against running afoul of new rules barring the sale of personal data to foreign adversaries of the U.S.

  • March 08, 2024

    DC Judge Strikes 2 BofA Experts In $1.1B FDIC Premiums Suit

    Bank of America can't use a certified public accountant and an economics scholar it had enlisted to fend off a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suit accusing the financial institution of failing to pay $1.1 billion in premiums, a federal magistrate judge has determined, finding both experts offered inadmissible opinions.

  • March 08, 2024

    SEC Crypto Target Can't Send Securities Query To 11th Circ.

    A Florida federal judge has declined to send the question of whether crypto transactions on public exchanges are securities to the Eleventh Circuit after rejecting a bid to toss a securities enforcement case against an alleged $37 million cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scheme.

  • March 08, 2024

    DocuSign Brass Accused Of Misleading Investors On Growth

    DocuSign's board of directors has been hit with a derivative shareholder suit in Delaware Chancery Court alleging that the e-signature giant misled investors by framing its 2020 growth as a sustainable shift in demand and not just a result of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

  • March 08, 2024

    Sorrento Gets OK For $2M Ch. 11 Funding Infusion, Asset Sale

    A Texas bankruptcy judge on Friday approved drug developer Sorrento Therapeutics Inc.'s bid for an asset sale and $2 million in funds to fuel its Chapter 11 case, saying they represented the only option outside of a transition to Chapter 7.

  • March 08, 2024

    Fed Sharpens Threat Safeguard Rules For Payment Utilities

    The Federal Reserve said Friday that it has finalized expanded risk-management requirements aimed at hardening key providers of payments infrastructure against cybersecurity disruptions, extreme weather and other threats to their critical operations.  

  • March 08, 2024

    League Of Legends Maker Facing $1B Suit Over FTX Promos

    League of Legends video-game maker Riot Games has been hit with a potential billion-dollar class action accusing the company of fraud and conspiracy for its alleged role in helping deceive investors of the collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange platform.

  • March 08, 2024

    UBS Luxembourg Must Face $50M Madoff Clawback Suit

    UBS Luxembourg can't escape a lawsuit seeking to claw back nearly $50 million the bank allegedly redeemed from Bernard L. Madoff feeder fund Fairfield Sentry Limited at highly inflated values, a New York bankruptcy judge ruled on Friday. 

  • March 08, 2024

    New Headache For Binance As 2nd Circ. Revives Investor Suit

    The Second Circuit on Friday revived a proposed investor class action against the embattled crypto exchange Binance Holdings Ltd. and its founder, disagreeing with a lower court that ruled the customers had not alleged their transactions were conducted in the U.S.

  • March 08, 2024

    Ex-Private Funds Leader With Perkins Coie Jumps To MoFo

    The former chair of Perkins Coie LLP's private investment funds group has jumped to Morrison Foerster LLP in Denver.

  • March 08, 2024

    Longtime Cannabis Atty From Bressler Joins Fox Rothschild

    Fox Rothschild LLP announced that an experienced cannabis and financial services attorney who spent nearly two decades with Bressler Amery & Ross PC has moved to the firm's litigation practice as a partner in Morristown, New Jersey.

  • March 08, 2024

    Activist Battle Tips, 'Hair-Raising' Red Flags Detailed At Tulane

    Companies attending Tulane University Law School's annual Corporate Law Institute conference got distinctive insights into how they can responsibly fend off activist investor attacks, heard diverging views about activists' motivations, and were warned about potential red flags in board members' pasts. 

  • March 07, 2024

    Judges Say Facing Threats And Vitriol Now Part Of The Job

    Federal judges spoke Thursday about the challenges of the profession in the 21st century, describing how they've either received threats or know of warnings against colleagues, with one jurist saying she received 11 death threats during her first three months on the bench.

  • March 07, 2024

    Skechers Fined $1.25M Over Execs' Family Member Payments

    Skechers will pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission $1.25 million to resolve claims it failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments made to its directors and their immediate family members who were hired by the sneaker giant as contractors or nonexecutive employees.

Expert Analysis

  • Bitcoin ETF Approval Doesn't Mean SEC Approves Of Crypto

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    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.

  • A Closer Look At Novel Jury Instruction In Forex Rigging Case

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    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.

  • Reducing Carbon Footprint Requires A Tricky Path For CRE

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    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.

  • Del.'s Tesla Pay Takedown Tells Boards What Not To Do

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    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.

  • The Corporate Disclosure Tug-Of-War's Free Speech Issues

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    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.

  • What New Calif. Strike Force Means For White Collar Crimes

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    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.

  • Del. Dispatch: Clarification On Fiduciary Duties Of Controllers

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    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.

  • Navigating The Sunset Of Sibor And Other Key Benchmarks

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    Similar to the recent transition away from Libor, the expected cessation deadlines of the Canadian Dollar Offered Rate and Singapore Interbank Offered Rate are nigh, so Canadian and Singapore dollar-denominated credit facilities will likely need to be amended, say attorneys at Cadwalader.

  • What Shareholder Approval Rule Changes Mean For Cos.

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently approved proposed rule changes to shareholder requirements by the New York Stock Exchange, an approval that will benefit listed companies in many ways, including by making it easier to raise capital from passive investors, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout

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    While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.

  • Series

    ESG Around The World: Brazil

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    Environmental, social and governance issues have increasingly translated into new legislation in Brazil since 2020, and in the wake of these recently enacted regulations, we are likely to see a growing number of legal disputes in the largest South American country related to ESG issues such as greenwashing if companies are not prepared to adequately adapt and comply, say attorneys at Mattos Filho.

  • The FINRA Reports That May Foreshadow New AI Rules

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    By reading the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s 2024 annual report detailing the regulatory implications of artificial intelligence tools alongside a similar 2020 FINRA publication, member firms may be able to anticipate which industry areas may soon face AI-specific regulations, say attorneys at Mintz.

  • Series

    Competing In Dressage Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My lifelong participation in the sport of dressage — often called ballet on horses — has proven that several skills developed through training and competition are transferable to legal work, especially the ability to harness focus, persistence and versatility when negotiating a deal, says Stephanie Coco at V&E.

  • What Financial Cos. Must Know For Handling T+1 Settlements

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted a groundbreaking new T+1 settlement rule for securities transactions in order to improve market efficiency — but it presents significant challenges for the financial services industry, especially private equity firms, hedge funds and institutional asset managers, says Adam Weiss at Petra Funds Group.

  • Breaking Down FDIC's New Advertising And Signage Rule

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    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s final rule on signage and advertising, coming on the heels of a campaign against nonbank businesses purporting to offer FDIC-insured deposit products, introduces important new requirements and clarifies existing regulations for both traditional depository institutions and novel digital platforms, say attorneys at Venable.

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