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Securities
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April 30, 2024
'Bitcoin Jesus' Dodged Nearly $50M In Taxes, Feds Say
The U.S. has charged an early bitcoin investor dubbed "Bitcoin Jesus" over allegations that he dodged approximately $48 million in taxes by filing false tax returns and concealing how much of the cryptocurrency he owned, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday.
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April 30, 2024
Chancery Tosses Meta Activist Investor Suit Over Social Ills
A Delaware vice chancellor tossed a Meta activist investor's suit seeking to prioritize wider social impact over company profits, saying Delaware's single-firm corporate model assumes directors owe fiduciary duties to their company's stockholders, and there's no case law articulating that because it's "so basic," just as "fish don't talk about water."
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April 30, 2024
SEC Fines Adviser Firm For Splitting Legal Fees With Client
A Puerto Rico-based investment adviser will pay more than $500,000 to settle the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's claims it entered into an improper joint legal fee arrangement with a mutual fund that was also its client.
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April 30, 2024
SEC Fines 3 Men For Insider Trading On Zogenix Buyout
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached deals Tuesday totaling more than $170,000 with three men accused of trading shares of biopharmaceutical company Zogenix Inc. based on insider information.
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April 30, 2024
5th Circ. Questions Texas' Standing In SEC Proxy Rule Battle
The Fifth Circuit appeared skeptical Tuesday of a Texas-led challenge to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulation that will require fund managers to make it easier for investors to identify ESG issues on corporate ballots, with the judges wondering whether the Lone Star State and others had standing to bring the lawsuit.
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April 30, 2024
Debt Box Wants Attorney Fees Paid If SEC Brings New Action
Crypto project Debt Box has asked a Utah federal judge to impose multiple "guardrails" if the court allows the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to refile its troubled registration suit against the firm, including payment of all attorney fees arising from the original, compromised suit.
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April 30, 2024
Genius Sports Investors Urge Chancery To Save Merger Suit
The special-purpose acquisition company that took Genius Sports Ltd. public in 2021 didn't fully disclose how a newly inked agreement with the National Football League would affect the sports data company, investors told Delaware's Court of Chancery on Tuesday, urging a judge to preserve their case against the SPAC and its directors.
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April 30, 2024
FTC Puts $26B Permian Basin Gas Deal Under Scrutiny
The Federal Trade Commission is taking an in-depth look at the proposed oil and gas merger between Diamondback Energy and Endeavor Energy Resources by issuing a second request for additional information about the deal, according to new securities filings.
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April 30, 2024
Sen. Warren Probes Annuity Cos. Over Use Of 'Secret' Perks
Large annuity providers are using lavish vacations and other kickbacks to drive sales that disadvantage consumers, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Tuesday, demanding information from more than a dozen companies on the heels of a new Labor Department rule aiming to ramp up scrutiny on financial advisers.
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April 30, 2024
Chancery Partially Vacates Trump Media Suit Fast-Track Order
A Delaware vice chancellor pulled the plug Tuesday on a bid to fast-track part of a suit brought by two co-founders of Trump Media & Technology Group against former President Donald Trump's Truth Social media company before it went public.
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April 30, 2024
Vaxart Investors Want Sanctions Over Deleted Texts
A group of Vaxart investors asked a California federal judge to issue sanctions against Armistice Capital LLC, which previously controlled Vaxart and allegedly sold $267 million worth of its Vaxart shares at inflated prices, saying the hedge fund and its executives purposely deleted text messages integral to the investors' claims.
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April 30, 2024
Judge Seeks Promises From Adviser, Wife In $5.9M SEC Case
A federal judge in Connecticut said Tuesday that he planned to at least temporarily deny a request from an investment adviser and his wife to release $50,000 from purported personal accounts to pay attorneys after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused the adviser of wrongly pocketing $5.9 million from clients.
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April 30, 2024
Crypto Exec Denies $2B Laundering Charges, Is Out On Bail
The CEO of crypto mixer Samourai Wallet has pled not guilty to charges he helped facilitate over $2 billion in illegal transactions and was released on $1 million bail after surrendering to federal authorities voluntarily.
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April 30, 2024
Truth Social Investor Had No Criminal Intent, NY Jury Told
Counsel for a Florida investment pro accused of insider trading on advance knowledge of a deal to take public former President Donald Trump's media concern Truth Social argued to a Manhattan federal jury Tuesday that he acted in good faith.
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April 30, 2024
NY Bank Investors Spar Over Bid To Merge, Pause Suits
New York Community Bancorp Inc. shareholders traded barbs in filings this week over whether a New York federal judge should allow an individual shareholder to intervene in the larger group's attempt to consolidate and stay their derivative shareholder suits against the bank.
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April 30, 2024
Dechert Adds Wilson Sonsini, Ex-SEC Crypto Expert In DC
A cryptocurrency and financial technology attorney who spent nearly six years with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has left his most-recent role as a partner with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC to join Dechert LLP in Washington, D.C., the firm announced Tuesday.
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April 30, 2024
Goodwin Private Funds Partner Joins Fried Frank In NY
Fried Frank has announced it hired a New York-based asset management attorney who spent more than a decade at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and was most recently a partner at Goodwin Procter LLP.
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April 30, 2024
King & Spalding Adds Miami Atty To Gov't Investigations Team
A former federal prosecutor who was most recently a partner at Miami boutique Meland Budwick PA has joined King & Spalding LLP's special matters and government investigations practice, the firm announced Tuesday.
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April 30, 2024
Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: BLB&G's Jeroen Van Kwawegen
Were it not for the University of Amsterdam's study abroad program, Netherlands-born Jeroen van Kwawegen might have never moved to the United States. And were it not for a long-distance relationship that got its start in the U.S., van Kwawegen might still be based across the Atlantic.
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April 30, 2024
Binance Founder Gets 4 Mos. For Lax Money Laundering Policy
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was sentenced Tuesday to four months in prison for his failure to implement an effective anti-money laundering program at the global crypto exchange, as a federal judge rejected a more severe punishment sought by the government citing concerns about sentencing disparity.
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April 30, 2024
Judge Says $4.5M Davis Wright Deal Should Be Approved
An Oregon federal magistrate judge has recommended approval of a $4.5 million deal resolving investor claims against Davis Wright Tremaine LLP for its role in endorsing an alleged real estate securities scheme.
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April 30, 2024
Moritt Hock Adds 3 Attorneys In NYC, Garden City Offices
Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP has hired an associate and counsel and has rehired a former corporate associate who spent three years working for the firm, according to a Monday announcement.
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April 29, 2024
'I Don't Want To Try That Case,' Judge Tells Mike Lynch's Atty
The California federal judge overseeing Autonomy founder Michael Lynch's fraud trial over claims he duped HP into paying an inflated $11.7 billion for his company pushed back Monday against an attempt by Lynch's lawyer to introduce evidence of events that took place after the acquisition, saying, "I don't want to try that case."
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April 29, 2024
Pomerantz, Glancy Prongay Spar To Lead LexUrban Fraud Suit
Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP and Pomerantz LLP are vying to represent a proposed class of investors in a New York federal suit against real estate company LuxUrban Hotels, with Glancy Prongay accusing Pomerantz of "cobbl[ing] together" a would-be co-counsel group and Pomerantz defending its proposed lead plaintiffs as a proper "cohesive duo."
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April 29, 2024
Terraform Says SEC's $5.4B Sanction Bid Fails Under Morrison
Crypto firm Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon struck back at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's $5.4 billion sanctions request following its trial win, filing dual briefs Monday that argued the regulator has only shown that "a small number" of allegedly illegal token sales took place in the U.S. and under its jurisdiction as outlined in the U.S. Supreme Court's Morrison decision.
Expert Analysis
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4 Questions On Groundbreaking New Foreign Bribery Law
The recently enacted Foreign Extortion Prevention Act will significantly alter the anti-corruption landscape under U.S. law by allowing prosecutors to pursue foreign officials for soliciting or accepting bribes, but it’s not yet clear how the statute will be used and by whom, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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Why CFTC Whistleblowers Are Crucial To Crypto Regulation
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's whistleblower program has proven to be a key tool in the U.S.' efforts to police cryptocurrency, but a funding issue shows that it has become a victim of its own success, says Stephen Kohn at Kohn Kohn.
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Wachtell-X Ruling Highlights Trend On Arbitrability Question
A growing body of case law, including a California state court's recent decision in X Corp. v. Wachtell, holds that incorporation of specific arbitral body rules in an arbitration provision may in and of itself constitute clear and unmistakable evidence of delegation of arbitrability to an arbitrator, and thus such clauses should be drafted carefully, say attorneys at Norton Rose.
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7 E-Discovery Predictions For 2024 And Beyond
The legal and technical issues of e-discovery now affect virtually every lawsuit, and in the year to come, practitioners can expect practices and policies to evolve in a number of ways, from the expanded use of relevancy redactions to mandated information security provisions in protective orders, say attorneys at Littler.
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Securities Class Actions Show No Signs of Slowing In 2024
Plaintiffs asserted securities class actions at elevated levels in 2023 — a sign that filings will remain high in the year ahead — as they switched gears to target companies that allegedly have failed to anticipate supply chain disruptions, persistent inflation, rising interest rates and other macroeconomic headwinds, say attorneys at Skadden.
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How Corp. Transparency Act Can Unmask Crypto Owners
With the federal Corporate Transparency Act in effect as of Jan. 1, litigants may now have a less burdensome path toward determining the identities of owners behind convoluted corporate entities, and, by extension, any digital assets they own that could be subject to a potential judgment, says Brett Sager at Ehrenstein Sager.
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ESG Concerns Can No Longer Be Ignored In 2024
While the long wait for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's ESG rule continues, government attention to regulations, increased litigation efforts and shareholder resolutions seeking transparency highlight the importance of placing an emphasis on ESG considerations, say attorneys at Wollmuth Maher.
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2 FCPA Settlements Illuminate Self-Disclosure, Disgorgement
Two of last year’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act settlements — with biomedical company Lifecore and mining company Corsa Coal — suggest that the government will be much more flexible in negotiating disgorgement amounts if an entity voluntarily self-discloses misconduct, say Michael Gilbert and Lucas Amodio at Sheppard Mullin.
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Opinion
Conflicts Abound When Activist Short-Sellers Publish Reports
The self-serving relationship between activist short-sellers and plaintiff-side litigators is conflict-ridden and hinders the fact finder's impartiality when a short report forms the basis for lead plaintiffs' allegations, say Nessim Mezrahi and Stephen Sigrist at SAR.
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5 Litigation Funding Trends To Note In 2024
Over the next year and beyond, litigation funding will continue to evolve in ways that affect attorneys and the larger litigation landscape, from the growth of a secondary market for funded claims, to rising interest rates restricting the availability of capital, says Jeffery Lula at GLS Capital.
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Bank-Fintech Partnerships Can Thrive Despite A Tough 2023
Many banking-as-a-service players experienced regulatory enforcement activities in 2023, including consent orders and more targeted, detailed guidance aimed at bank-fintech partnerships, and while it seems this trend will continue in 2024, savvy banks can use the turmoil of last year as a guide for how to better manage the risks inherent in partnerships, says Justin Steffen at Barack Ferrazzano.
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5 Securities Litigation Issues To Watch In 2024
There is yet another exciting year ahead for securities litigation, starting with the U.S. Supreme Court hearing argument next week in a case presenting a key securities class action question that has eluded review for the last eight years, say attorneys at Willkie.
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Antitrust And ESG: Maximizing Targets, Ensuring Compliance
Jennifer McAlpin at Verizon and Michaela Spero at Amadeus consider the convergence of antitrust and environmental, social and corporate governance factors, providing an executive overview of areas to watch, including mergers and acquisitions, as well as practical implementation tips for general counsel.
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Series
ESG Around The World: South Africa
While South Africa has yet to mandate the reporting of nonfinancial and environmental, social, and corporate governance issues, policy documents and recent legislative developments are likely to have a material impact in the country's transition to a low-carbon economy and in meeting its international obligations, say Glynn Kent at Eversheds Sutherland.
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Securing Financial Transparency In Chapter 11 Reporting
As we enter the new year, restructuring professionals would be wise to review Chapter 11 public reporting requirements to navigate what debtors may do to try to minimize public reporting, and what creditors can do to get the public reporting they deserve by striking a balance between financial transparency requirements and tactical moves, say Thomas Moers Mayer and Nancy Bello at Kramer Levin.