Capital Markets

  • November 21, 2024

    SEC Chair Gensler To Step Down When Trump Takes Office

    U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said Thursday that he will be leaving the agency on Jan. 20, clearing the way for new leadership under an incoming Trump administration that is expected to dismantle Gensler's climate disclosure regulation and open the SEC's door to more crypto-friendly policies.

  • November 20, 2024

    SEC Cooperators More Likely To See Pay Reprieve In 2024

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent emphasis on cooperation seems to have paid off for both the agency and some of the entities it regulates, according to a report released Thursday, which found that more public companies entered into nonmonetary settlements with the SEC in fiscal year 2024 than in any year over the previous decade.

  • November 20, 2024

    5 Charged For 'Scattered Spider' Phishing Hacks, Crypto Theft

    California federal prosecutors unveiled a criminal case Wednesday accusing five alleged members of the "Scattered Spider" cybercrime group of using a phishing scheme to access the confidential data of media and technology companies and steal $11 million worth of cryptocurrency from digital wallets.

  • November 20, 2024

    Ex-Wells Fargo Adviser Admits To Stealing $3M From Clients

    A former Wells Fargo broker and investment adviser admitted on Wednesday to stealing more than $3 million from his clients and customers and using the money for, among other things, buying gold coins, New Jersey federal prosecutors said.

  • November 20, 2024

    $2.6M Deal Proposed To End Chancery Lottery.com Suit

    Five executives of the special purpose acquisition company that took Lottery.com public have reached a $2.6 million settlement with company shareholders to resolve claims that the 2021 take-public deal misled investors about the potential value of the business.

  • November 20, 2024

    Firms For Ohio Funds Aim To Steer ZoomInfo Investor Suit

    Two Ohio retirement funds asked a Washington federal judge to name their attorneys from Labaton Keller Sucharow LLP and Byrnes Keller Cromwell LLP as lead counsel and liaison counsel in investor claims brought against ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. over its allegedly misguided attempts to maintain a pandemic-era customer boom.

  • November 20, 2024

    Biden Bank Regulators Punt Big-Ticket Rulemakings To Trump

    Top Biden administration banking regulators told House lawmakers on Wednesday that they don't plan to move forward on efforts to strengthen banks' requirements for capital, liquidity or long-term debt before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, although the Federal Reserve's supervision chief said he's not leaving anytime soon. 

  • November 20, 2024

    Archegos Founder Gets 18 Years For Massive Market Fraud

    Bill Hwang, the founder of collapsed hedge fund Archegos, was sentenced Wednesday to 18 years in prison after he was convicted of lying to banks in order to secure billions of dollars in loans used to manipulate the market.

  • November 20, 2024

    Cleary Hires Milbank Atty For Capital Markets Team

    Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP announced the addition of a former Milbank LLP transactional attorney to its New York office on Wednesday, saying she will be an asset for its capital markets clients.

  • November 20, 2024

    MVP: Cahill Gordon's Stuart Downing

    Stuart Downing of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP's banking and finance practice shepherded major leveraged refinancing transactions over the last year, including advising banks in a $2 billion leveraged finance deal with Creative Arts Agency and guiding a $1.89 billion credit facility for Radiology Partners in an out-of-court restructuring, earning him a spot as one of the 2024 Law360 Complex Financial Instruments MVPs.

  • November 20, 2024

    Davis Polk-Led Comcast To Spin Off NBCUniversal TV Assets

    Comcast Corp. said Wednesday it plans to spin off a suite of NBCUniversal cable television networks, including the USA Network, CNBC and MSNBC, along with additional digital assets, which generate a combined total $7 billion in annual revenues.  

  • November 20, 2024

    Bankman-Fried Tech Deputy Who Parsed Code Avoids Prison

    A Manhattan federal judge allowed tech expert Zixiao "Gary" Wang to avoid jail Wednesday for his role in the $11 billion FTX fraud, crediting his effort to detail programming "back doors" that enabled Sam Bankman-Fried to loot the bankrupt crypto exchange.

  • November 19, 2024

    Ex-OpenSea Staffer Says Insider Trading Verdict Must Fall

    A former OpenSea manager accused of insider trading from digital tokens sold on his employer's platform urged the Second Circuit Tuesday to overturn his conviction, saying his ideas about what to feature on his company's website cannot be construed as property.

  • November 19, 2024

    11th Circ. Weighs Whether Tornado Cash Sanctions Overreach

    An Eleventh Circuit panel on Tuesday dove deep into the mechanisms of cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash as the judges weighed whether government sanctions intended to curb illicit finance on the protocol are permitted under the law.

  • November 19, 2024

    Calif. Judge Says Crypto DAOs Are Entities That Can Be Sued

    A California federal judge has held that decentralized autonomous organizations and their governing members can indeed be sued, refusing to throw out a Golden State cryptocurrency investor's suit against Lido DAO that the judge said presents "several new and important questions" about liability in the crypto world.

  • November 19, 2024

    10th Circ. Mulls Constitutional Challenge To Securities Orgs

    A three-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit on Tuesday heard arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of the nation's largest securities clearing organizations, with the judges weighing whether they should stop the organizations from acting against a broker-dealer while the case is ongoing.

  • November 19, 2024

    CFPB's Medical Debt Guidance Faces Industry Injunction Bid

    Debt collectors asked a D.C. federal court on Monday to put an immediate hold on recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau guidance aimed at the medical debt collection market, escalating their challenge to the document ahead of its looming effective date.

  • November 19, 2024

    Ex-Fed Examiner Cops To Insider Trading, Settles With SEC

    A former senior banking supervisor with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond pled guilty Tuesday in Virginia federal court to insider trading, the same day he resolved the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's claims accusing him of inappropriately trading in shares of New York Community Bancorp and Capital One Financial Corp.

  • November 19, 2024

    Jury To Decide If Gemini's Bitcoin Statements Were False

    A New York federal judge has found that crypto exchange Gemini Trust Co. was the "maker" of alleged misrepresentations to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission about its plans to offer bitcoin futures contracts, but a jury will have to decide if the statements were materially false or misleading.

  • November 19, 2024

    Dentons Atty Owed No Duty In $54M Currency Swap, Jury Told

    A Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP partner on Tuesday defended the actions of a former Dentons attorney in a failed $54 million bolivar-to-dollars currency swap, telling jurors that she did not owe a duty to the Venezuelan attorney suing her for malpractice because she never represented him as his attorney. 

  • November 19, 2024

    Graham Capital Sues To Stop Ex-Exec's Return To Competitor

    Graham Capital Management LP, a Connecticut investment firm with more than $19 billion in assets under management, is asking a Connecticut state trial court judge to block a former managing director from working in California for a competitor that previously employed him in Connecticut for 11 years.

  • November 19, 2024

    Shaq Reaches $11M Deal With Astrals NFT Buyers

    Hall of Fame basketball player Shaquille O'Neal and the creators of the Astrals nonfungible token project have agreed to pay $11 million to settle a proposed securities class action with buyers of the tokens that O'Neal allegedly promoted.

  • November 19, 2024

    Cravath-Led Robinhood To Acquire TradePMR In $300M Deal

    Stock trading app Robinhood Markets Inc., advised by Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP, on Tuesday announced plans to buy registered investment adviser-focused custodial and portfolio management platform TradePMR, led by Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young LLP, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $300 million.

  • November 19, 2024

    DC Sues Wage Advance Co. For 'Predatory Lending'

    Pay advance app EarnIn deceptively lures in cash-strapped borrowers with promises of providing payday advances with no mandatory fees but ultimately causes users to incur interest rates that can exceed 300%, the Washington, D.C., attorney general said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

  • November 19, 2024

    FDIC's Gruenberg To Exit On Eve Of Trump's Inauguration

    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s embattled chairman, Martin Gruenberg, said Tuesday that he will step down and retire from the agency before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, clearing the way for a new, likely Republican leader at the deposit insurer.

Expert Analysis

  • Making Sure Your Co. Isn't In The Next Section 13(f) Sweep

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    Enforcement actions taken against 11 institutional investment managers for alleged failures to file forms required by Section 13(f) of the Securities Exchange Act serve as a reminder that firms should carefully monitor their obligations to avoid becoming the target of the next enforcement sweep, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • 8 Childhood Lessons That Can Help You Be A Better Attorney

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    A new school year is underway, marking a fitting time for attorneys to reflect on some fundamental life lessons from early childhood that offer a framework for problems that no legal textbook can solve, say Chris Gismondi and Chris Campbell at DLA Piper.

  • Recent Securities Cases Highlight Risks In AI Disclosures

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    Increasing public disclosure about the use and risks of artificial intelligence, and related litigation asserting that such disclosures are false or misleading, suggest that issuers need to exercise great care with respect to how they describe the benefits of AI, say Richard Zelichov and Danny Tobey at DLA Piper.

  • Opinion

    This Election, We Need To Talk About Court Process

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    In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has markedly transformed judicial processes — from summary judgment standards to notice pleadings — which has, in turn, affected individuals’ substantive rights, and we need to consider how the upcoming presidential election may continue this pattern, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Breaking Down CFTC's Novel Theory Driving Uniswap Action

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    The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recent enforcement action against Uniswap concerning digital asset liquidity appears to be a unilateral attempt to expand its regulatory authority in the absence of official congressional approval, putting forth a novel theory of liability that will likely be tested through litigation, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Series

    Playing Diplomacy Makes Us Better Lawyers

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    Similar to the practice of law, the rules of Diplomacy — a strategic board game set in pre-World War I Europe — are neither concise nor without ambiguity, and weekly gameplay with our colleagues has revealed the game's practical applications to our work as attorneys, say Jason Osborn and Ben Bevilacqua at Winston & Strawn.

  • Applying High Court's Domestic Corruption Rulings To FCPA

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the domestic corruption statutes in three decisions over the past year and a half, it’s worth evaluating whether these rulings may have an impact on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement, and if attorneys can use the court’s reasoning in international bribery cases, says James Koukios at MoFo.

  • Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys

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    Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.

  • Series

    Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q3

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    In the third quarter of the year, California continued to be at the forefront of banking regulation as it enacted legislation on unfair banking practices and junk fees, and the state Department of Financial Protection and Innovation notably initiated enforcement actions focused on crypto-assets and student loan debt relief, say Stuart Richter and Eric Hail at Katten.

  • 2 High Court Securities Cases Could Clarify Pleading Rules

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    In granting certiorari in a pair of securities fraud cases against Facebook and Nvidia, respectively, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled its intention to align interpretations of the heightened pleading standard under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act amid its uneven application among the circuit courts, say attorneys at V&E.

  • Series

    Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.

  • Series

    A Day In The In-House Life: Best Egg CLO Talks Power Of Prep

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    On a typical Monday in her life, Best Egg Chief Legal Officer Amy Thoreson Long chronicles a remote workday in which she makes time for everything from getting ahead on regulatory issues and researching recent Supreme Court decisions to dog walks and podcast breaks.

  • Takeaways From TOTSA Settlement And Critical CFTC Dissent

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    The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recent settlement with TOTSA highlights the agency's commitment to enforcing market integrity and deterring manipulative practices, while Commissioner Caroline Pham's dissent to the settlement spotlights the need for transparency and consistency in enforcement actions, say attorneys at Davis Wright.

  • Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession

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    About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • Payward And The Secondary Crypto Transaction Confusion

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    Following orders in cases against Coinbase and Binance, the recent California federal court ruling in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Payward raises even more questions about regulation of secondary transactions involving crypto-assets, as it tries to sidestep fundamental flaws in the SEC's legal theories, say attorneys at Cahill Gordon.

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