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Securities
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September 25, 2024
Meta Wants 'License' To Cover Up Past Events, Justices Told
Meta Platforms Inc. shareholders say the U.S. Supreme Court should not be swayed by the social media company's attempt to shake off a proposed class action tied to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, warning a high court ruling in favor of Facebook's parent company could give publicly traded companies "license to intentionally mislead investors."
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September 25, 2024
Feds Say 'Wall Of Evidence' Supports Petrobras Bribery Case
A Connecticut oil trader violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by sending millions in bribes to officials at Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras through a shady intermediary, federal prosecutors told a jury during closing arguments Wednesday, arguing that a "wall of evidence" points to the defendant's intent.
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September 25, 2024
E-Bike Maker Argues In Del. Supreme Court To Salvage Sale
An attorney for a private equity affiliate that beat a Barcelona-based electric scooter rental chain's attempt to force a closing on the scooter company's $100 million sale in Chancery Court told Delaware's Supreme Court Wednesday that the seller's current appeal ignores its own fatal contract breaches.
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September 25, 2024
Merrill, Harvest To Pay SEC $9.3M For Ignoring Clients' Limits
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday announced that investment advisory firms Harvest Volatility Management LLC and Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc. will pay a combined $9.3 million to settle claims that they exceeded clients' designated investment limits over a two-year period, causing those clients to incur higher fees and losses.
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September 25, 2024
7th Circ. Doubts London Depo Should Trigger New Fraud Trial
Seventh Circuit judges appeared skeptical Wednesday of a former investment manager's bid for a new trial after he was convicted of bilking investors of roughly $10 million because he could not physically confront a key witness who testified via deposition in London, saying he failed to adequately object to the circumstance.
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September 25, 2024
Penalized Apple Atty Says He Was 'Demoralized' By Co. Culture
Apple Inc.'s former senior director of corporate law, who pled guilty to insider trading in 2022 and was later penalized $1.1 million in a civil case, had mental health disorders and was "demoralized" by the company's culture and executives' misconduct, he said in temporarily unsealed records in New Jersey federal court.
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September 25, 2024
Shipman & Goodwin Atty Needed As Witness, DQ Bid Claims
A Connecticut company wants a Shipman & Goodwin LLP partner disqualified from representing a rival in a bond dispute surrounding a garbage sorting facility permit, saying the attorney was personally involved in some of the conduct in question.
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September 25, 2024
NYSE Cancels Proposal To Extend SPAC Merger Deadlines
The New York Stock Exchange has pulled a proposal that would have provided special purpose acquisition companies with more time to complete mergers while remaining listed, several months after it sought regulatory approval for the extension.
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September 25, 2024
Bar Works Crook Gets 7 Years For Role In $57M Global Fraud
A Manhattan federal judge hit an English real estate marketer with a seven-year prison sentence on Wednesday for joining what prosecutors call a global Ponzi scheme that tricked investors into pouring $57 million into the bogus workspace share venture Bar Works.
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September 24, 2024
Bank Regulators, SEC Face GOP Inquiry Over Crypto Bulletin
House Republicans have called for the Federal Reserve and other agencies to turn over a host of documents for what the lawmakers say is an inquiry into the origins and behind-the-scenes policymaking impact of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's cryptocurrency accounting guidance.
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September 24, 2024
'Be Careful What You Wish For' Post-Jarkesy, SEC Atty Says
A trial lawyer for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told the defense bar Tuesday to "be careful what you wish for" after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the agency's in-house court system, saying cases against gatekeepers "are not going away."
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September 24, 2024
Biotech RenovaCare Investors Seek OK Of $2M Deal
Biotechnology company RenovaCare Inc. has reached a $2 million deal to end a consolidated proposed class action alleging it pumped its stock prices by using a secret paid promotional campaign, the company's investors have told a New Jersey federal judge.
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September 24, 2024
Feds Charge AI Co. Founder With $40M Fraud
The founder and former CEO of a company that purported to sell artificial intelligence-based business automation software faces federal criminal charges and a civil lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, authorities announced Tuesday, alleging he lied about the firm's revenues and customer relationships to entice investors.
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September 24, 2024
Athlete Investment Co. Gets Claims Nipped In $1M Fraud Suit
A New York federal judge has trimmed a suit alleging that an athlete investment company that aimed to "tokenize" and sell shares of professional athletes was involved in a $1 million fraud and lied about its business plan, saying the plaintiff is conflicted from bringing certain derivative claims.
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September 24, 2024
SEC Orders Crypto Cos. To Pay $700K Over Stablecoin Offers
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday unveiled a $700,000 settlement with stablecoin issuer TrueCoin and affiliated lending business TrustToken over alleged misrepresentations about the stability of the token and failures to register its use in "profit-making opportunities."
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September 24, 2024
3 Takeaways From Gensler's Big Day Before The House
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler appeared before the U.S. House of Representative for potentially the last time on Tuesday, where he stuck up for his agency's actions in the crypto space and hinted at the possible revival of share buyback rules.
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September 24, 2024
SEC Fines Weedmaps' Parent Co. $1.5M Over User Metrics
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday fined the parent company of cannabis tech company Weedmaps $1.5 million for allegedly making misleading statements about its monthly active users.
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September 24, 2024
Google Investors' Atty Defends Fees For $350M Privacy Deal
Counsel for Google LLC shareholders who reached a $350 million settlement with Alphabet Inc. over claims they were deceived about a 2018 data breach urged a California federal judge Tuesday to approve the deal, including about $66.5 million for attorneys, calling the fees more than reasonable.
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September 24, 2024
'Joker' Producer's Broker To Pay $60M In Ponzi Scheme Suit
An investor asked an Illinois state judge Tuesday for his early approval of a $60 million settlement with an investment adviser who convinced her and others to put money toward an international Ponzi scheme she says movie producer Jason Cloth carried out by raising new funds to pay off older investors.
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September 24, 2024
Philips Must Face Investor Suit Over FDA Compliance Issues
Health technology company Koninklijke Philips and its former CEO cannot escape a suit accusing them of misleading investors about the safety and compliance of its subsidiary's sleep and respiratory care products, which were recalled in 2021, but its chief financial officer and a former CEO of a Philips subsidiary were allowed to exit the case for good.
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September 24, 2024
Feds Say BitMEX Should Owe $428M For Flouting AML Rules
Federal prosecutors urged a Manhattan federal judge to impose a $428 million penalty for offshore crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX after the firm admitted to lax anti-money laundering procedures, arguing the more than $100 million the firm and founders have already paid to regulators is not enough to deter other crypto firms from Bank Secrecy Act violations.
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September 24, 2024
Ex-Foot Locker Exec To Pay $236K For Insider Trading
A laid-off Foot Locker executive agreed to pay nearly $236,000 to resolve U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims that he engaged in insider trading during and after his time with the sportswear company, the agency announced Tuesday.
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September 24, 2024
ATI To Pay $31M In SPAC Merger Litigation Settlement
An Illinois federal judge on Tuesday approved ATI Physical Therapy Inc.'s $31 million deal to resolve stockholder and derivative accusations that the company's top brass hid attrition issues to get shareholder approval of ATI's merger with Wilco Holding Inc.
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September 24, 2024
Chancery Told SwervePay Deserves Sanctions In Earnout Suit
A court-appointed special magistrate has recommended sanctioning e-payment venture SwervePay and related parties over up to 22 months of missing or deleted text messages sought by SPOSC Investment Holdings and others in a post-merger battle over an alleged multibillion-dollar overstatement of "monetizable" payment traffic.
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September 24, 2024
Trio Used Penny Stock Co. For Wide-Ranging Fraud, SEC Says
A trio of defendants faces U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations they orchestrated a wide-ranging investment scheme to illegally profit off of a purported solar company and bogus claims about a rapid COVID-19 test, targeting investors and even the company's own transfer agent to enrich themselves.
Expert Analysis
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5th Circ. Venue-Transfer Cases Highlight Mandamus Limits
Three ongoing cases filed within the Fifth Circuit highlight an odd procedural wrinkle that may let district courts defy an appellate writ: orders granting transfer to out-of-circuit districts, but parties opposing intercircuit transfer can work around this hurdle to effective appellate review, says Charles Fowler at McKool Smith.
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A Healthier Legal Industry Starts With Emotional Intelligence
The legal profession has long been plagued by high rates of mental health issues, in part due to attorneys’ early training and broader societal stereotypes — but developing one’s emotional intelligence is one way to foster positive change, collectively and individually, says attorney Esperanza Franco.
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To Make Your Legal Writing Clear, Emulate A Master Chef
To deliver clear and effective written advocacy, lawyers should follow the model of a fine dining chef — seasoning a foundation of pure facts with punchy descriptors, spicing it up with analogies, refining the recipe and trimming the fat — thus catering to a sophisticated audience of decision-makers, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Takeaways From SEC's New Data Breach Amendments
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent amendment of its consumer privacy rules to require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place to uncover data breaches and report them to customers evidences that protecting client records and information remains an SEC priority, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.
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Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?
Last week's Eleventh Circuit opinion in Snell v. United Specialty Insurance, notable for a concurrence outlining the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate a term's common meaning, is hopefully the first step toward developing a coherent basis for the judiciary's generative AI use, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.
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NY Ruling Paves A Court Payment Shortcut For More Creditors
A recent New York state appeals court ruling expands access to an expedited statutory procedure for court enforcement of promissory notes or unconditional guaranties, allowing more creditors to minimize the risk of potentially challenging litigation on threshold issues, says Alexander Levi at Friedman Kaplan.
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9th Circ. COVID 'Cure' Case Shows Perks Of Puffery Defense
The Ninth Circuit's March decision in a case surrounding a company's statements about a potential COVID-19 cure may encourage defendants to assert puffery defenses in securities fraud cases, particularly in those involving optimistic statements about breakthrough drugs that are still untested, say attorneys at Cahill Gordon.
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BF Borgers Clients Should Review Compliance, Liability
After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recently announced enforcement proceedings against audit firm BF Borgers for fabricating audit documentation for hundreds of public companies, those companies will need to follow special procedures for disclosure and reporting — and may need to prepare for litigation from the plaintiffs bar, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: May Lessons
In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses four notable circuit court decisions on topics from automobile insurance to securities — and provides key takeaways for counsel on issues including circuit-specific ascertainability requirements and how to conduct a Daubert analysis prior to class certification.
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Perspectives
Trauma-Informed Legal Approaches For Pro Bono Attorneys
As National Trauma Awareness Month ends, pro bono attorneys should nevertheless continue to acknowledge the mental and physical effects of trauma, allowing them to better represent clients, and protect themselves from compassion fatigue and burnout, say Katherine Cronin at Stinson and Katharine Manning at Blackbird.
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Opinion
Del. Needs To Urgently Pass Post-Moelis Corporate Law Bill
After the Delaware Chancery Court's decision in West Palm Beach Firefighters' Pension v. Moelis sparked confusion around governance rights, recently proposed amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law would preserve the state's predictable corporate governance system, says Lawrence Hamermesh at Widener University Delaware Law School.
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4 Arbitration Takeaways From High Court Coinbase Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court's May 23 decision in Coinbase v. Suski, which provides clarity to parties faced with successive contracts containing conflicting dispute resolution provisions, has four practical impacts for contracting parties to consider, say Charles Schoenwetter and Eric Olson at Bowman and Brooke.
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Series
Playing Music Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My deep and passionate involvement in playing, writing and producing music equipped me with skills — like creativity, improvisation and problem-solving — that contribute to the success of my legal career, says attorney Kenneth Greene.
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How Attys Can Avoid Pitfalls When Withdrawing From A Case
The Trump campaign's recent scuffle over its bid to replace its counsel in a pregnancy retaliation suit offers a chance to remind attorneys that many troubles inherent in withdrawing from a case can be mitigated or entirely avoided by communicating with clients openly and frequently, says Christopher Konneker at Orsinger Nelson.
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FEPA Cases Are Natural Fit For DOJ's Fraud Section
The U.S. Department of Justice’s recent announcement that its Fraud Section would have exclusive jurisdiction over the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act — a new law that criminalizes “demand side” foreign bribery — makes sense, given its experience navigating the political and diplomatic sensitivities of related statutes, say James Koukios and Rachel Davidson Raycraft at MoFo.