Securities

  • May 01, 2024

    NY Man Charged With $43M Hospitality Ponzi Scheme

    A Manhattan resident was charged Wednesday with soliciting $43 million in investments through a Ponzi scheme that peddled false claims about his company's business interests in cryptocurrency, Las Vegas sports stadiums and hospitality.

  • May 01, 2024

    'Foul' BioVentrix Cash-Out Gets Extra Scrutiny, Chancery Says

    A medical device company's decision to suddenly and without explanation cash out its common stockholders for less than a penny just two months before the company raised $48.5 million in new capital creates such a "foul flavor" that it deserves extra scrutiny, a Delaware Chancery Court judge said Wednesday.

  • May 01, 2024

    Del. Justices Reverse Toss Of $7.3B Inovalon Deal Challenge

    Delaware's top court on Wednesday reversed a Chancery Court dismissal of stockholder challenges to the $7.3 billion go-private sale of Inovalon Holdings Inc. to Nordic Capital, saying that the lower court wrongly concluded that minority investors were adequately informed about the deal and special committee conflicts of interest.

  • May 01, 2024

    Paramount Faces Chancery Suit Over Skydance Merger Moves

    The general treasurer of Rhode Island has sued Paramount Global in Delaware's Chancery Court for access to records regarding efforts to merge the mass media giant with Skydance Media, accusing Paramount's billionaire controller, Shari Redstone, of usurping company opportunities and tilting the terms and processes toward her own benefit.

  • May 01, 2024

    Globe Life Hid Toxic Culture And Policy Fraud, Investors Say

    Life insurance company Globe Life Inc. has been hit with a proposed class action alleging investors were damaged when a short-seller report revealed that the company had been ignoring rampant sexual harassment among its employees and participating in fraudulent underwriting practices.

  • May 01, 2024

    Conn. Attorney Scores Default $85K Win In Legal Bill Feud

    A federal judge has ordered two Colorado companies, one of which claimed to be working on a cryptocurrency exchange, to pay a default judgment of $85,456 after failing to answer a Connecticut firm's claims that they failed to pay nearly $107,000 in legal fees.

  • May 01, 2024

    Insulin Pump Maker Wins Toss of Investor Suit For Now

    A California federal judge has sided with an insulin pump maker and tossed a suit alleging it misled investors about the potential growth of the company amid inflation and an uptick in competition, saying the suing investors have failed to plead any false or misleading statements or knowledge of wrongdoing by the defendants.

  • May 01, 2024

    Trump's Truth Social Stake Expands To Nearly 65%

    Former President Donald Trump's stake in his social media platform rose to 65%, according to a securities filing, valuing his stake at more than $5 billion based on current trading, though Trump is barred from selling shares for several months.

  • May 01, 2024

    AI Is Top Of Mind For Companies — And Securities Regulators

    As references to artificial intelligence in securities filings soar, attorneys say companies must ground their disclosures in fact and be upfront about risks posed by AI in order to avoid the wrath of regulators, who promise to crack down on misleading claims.

  • April 30, 2024

    SEC Vet Joins NC Firm 'Reinventing' White Collar

    The former assistant secretary of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Christina Zaroulis Milnor, has left government service after more than a decade to launch a Washington, D.C., office for North Carolina-based Cranfill Sumner LLP alongside two firm partners who say they are reinventing traditional white collar work, the firm announced Wednesday.

  • April 30, 2024

    2nd Circ. Revives Commerzbank RMBS Suit Against US Bank

    The Second Circuit on Tuesday revived part of a nearly decade-old Commerzbank AG lawsuit brought against U.S. Bank NA over its role as a trustee on a slew of pre-2008 crisis RMBS trusts, sending some of the German bank's previously dismissed claims back to district court for a "closer inspection."

  • April 30, 2024

    Ex-Autonomy VP Says CEO Lynch Told Him To Lie To Investors

    A former Autonomy business development executive testified Tuesday that CEO Mike Lynch directed him to lie to a hedge fund investor about prepaid royalty deals that boosted the company's upfront revenue numbers, saying at Lynch's criminal fraud trial that it was hard to say no to the "big boss."

  • April 30, 2024

    SEC Says Penny Stock Firm Failed To Register As A Dealer

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued a New Jersey company for allegedly dealing in penny stock without registering as a securities dealer, echoing claims the agency made against a different lender, which the Eleventh Circuit largely affirmed in February.

  • 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.

  • 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."

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q4

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    New York's banking and financial sector saw a number of notable regulatory and legislative changes in the final quarter of 2023, including guidance on climate risks and heightened cybersecurity protocols issued by the New York State Department of Financial Services, as well as final revisions to virtual currency listings in the state, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • 4 Questions On Groundbreaking New Foreign Bribery Law

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    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.

  • Why CFTC Whistleblowers Are Crucial To Crypto Regulation

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    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.

  • Wachtell-X Ruling Highlights Trend On Arbitrability Question

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    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.

  • 7 E-Discovery Predictions For 2024 And Beyond

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    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.

  • Securities Class Actions Show No Signs of Slowing In 2024

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    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.

  • How Corp. Transparency Act Can Unmask Crypto Owners

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    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.

  • ESG Concerns Can No Longer Be Ignored In 2024

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    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.

  • 2 FCPA Settlements Illuminate Self-Disclosure, Disgorgement

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    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.

  • Opinion

    Conflicts Abound When Activist Short-Sellers Publish Reports

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    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.

  • 5 Litigation Funding Trends To Note In 2024

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    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.

  • Bank-Fintech Partnerships Can Thrive Despite A Tough 2023

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    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.

  • 5 Securities Litigation Issues To Watch In 2024

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    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.

  • Antitrust And ESG: Maximizing Targets, Ensuring Compliance

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    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.

  • Series

    ESG Around The World: South Africa

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    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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