Securities

  • January 17, 2025

    Drink Maker Celsius Settles SEC's Accounting Claims For $3M

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday fined beverage company Celsius Holdings Inc. $3 million to settle claims that it issued financial statements that were materially inaccurate and misleading due to misreported stock award information.

  • January 17, 2025

    Energy Co. To Pay $19M SEC Fine Over Ohio Bribery Scandal

    American Electric Power Inc. on Friday agreed to pay $19 million to resolve claims from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the utility company violated federal securities laws in connection with a bribery scandal embroiling the Ohio Legislature.

  • January 17, 2025

    NYC Mall Lenders, Developer Want Foreign Investor Suit Nixed

    Financial backers of a Staten Island mall project are asking a federal judge to toss a suit by foreign investors seeking damages, arguing that the investors are just trying to "claw back" whatever they can from others who lost even more money.

  • January 17, 2025

    Ex-Mozambique Finance Head Gets 8½ Years In $2B Bond Rap

    A Brooklyn federal judge sentenced Mozambique's former finance minister to 8½ years in prison Friday for facilitating a corrupt $2 billion loans-for-bribes deal, ordering him to forfeit $7 million and imposing time beyond the six years the defendant has been incarcerated.

  • January 17, 2025

    Meet The Key Players In Tom Goldstein's Tax-Crimes Case

    The tax-evasion indictment of U.S. Supreme Court expert lawyer and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein features an eclectic cast of characters linked to his purported side career as a high-stakes poker player, including law firm partners, professional gamblers, a Texas billionaire, a movie producer and an actor.

  • January 17, 2025

    SEC Fines Crypto Giant DCG, Ex-Genesis CEO $38.5M

    Crypto venture capital firm Digital Currency Group and the ex-CEO of its bankrupt lending subsidiary Genesis Global Capital LLC agreed to a combined $38.5 million civil penalty Friday to settle claims they misled investors about Genesis' financial condition ahead of its collapse.

  • January 17, 2025

    SEC Fines Unregistered Broker $3M Over Pre-IPO Work

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday fined an unregistered broker $3 million to resolve charges for illegally brokering transactions related to the stock of private companies that were expected to conduct initial public offerings.

  • January 17, 2025

    Vanguard To Pay SEC, States $106M Over Surprise Tax Bills

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was joined by dozens of state regulators Friday in announcing a $106.4 million settlement with The Vanguard Group Inc. over claims that the company misled investors about the heightened capital gains taxes they would have to pay on certain retirement savings accounts.

  • January 16, 2025

    Two Sigma Fined $90M Over Investment, Whistleblower Issues

    New York-based Two Sigma has agreed to pay $90 million in fines and has already refunded $165 million to various funds and accounts to put to rest the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's allegations it failed to deal with known issues with its investment models, the SEC announced Thursday.

  • January 16, 2025

    SEC's General Counsel Barbero To Exit As Trump Takes Office

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Thursday that General Counsel Megan Barbero will depart the agency on the day of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, capping a nearly two-year run that saw the agency face setbacks to its regulatory powers before conservative courts, but also notch some important wins.

  • January 16, 2025

    NY Court Won't Revive Leon Black Sex Assault Suit

    A New York appeals court ruled Thursday that a nondisclosure agreement did indeed bar a woman's sexual assault suit against former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black, finding that the NDA was not signed under duress and is therefore valid.

  • January 16, 2025

    Crypto Firm DRW Wants Out Of SEC's 'Scorched Earth' Suit

    The crypto-trading arm of DRW Holdings says it has become the latest target of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's "scorched-earth enforcement campaign against the crypto-asset industry" in its bid to dismiss a suit alleging it engaged in more than $2 billion in unregistered crypto transactions.

  • January 16, 2025

    SEC Hit With Atty Fee Request Over Rare In-House Loss

    A Michigan-based company that convinced the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to retroactively lift a trading suspension is now arguing that the agency should have to pay the company's attorneys because enforcement staff "lied and misled" in order to obtain the suspension.

  • January 16, 2025

    FDIC Case Belongs In Fed. Court After Jarkesy, 5th Circ. Told

    A former Herring Bank executive argued in a Fifth Circuit brief that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s in-house enforcement proceedings against him denied him his right to a jury trial in federal court, saying the allegations against him involve legal issues that have historically been decided by juries.

  • January 16, 2025

    Chancery Nixes More Docs For Exxon-Pioneer Merger Suit

    Ruling that "any further intrusions are unwarranted," Delaware's Court of Chancery on Thursday rejected a Pioneer Natural Resources stockholder bid for additional emails and text messages between the company's former CEO and Exxon Mobil Corp.'s top executive related to the two company's $60 billion merger.

  • January 16, 2025

    Spirit Aero Hit With Chancery Suit Over $8.3B Boeing Merger

    A Spirit Aerosystems stockholder has launched a proposed class suit in the Delaware Chancery Court challenging the company's $8.3 billion all-stock acquisition by its largest customer, Boeing, announced in July 2024, citing disclosure failures and other concerns.

  • January 16, 2025

    NC Biz Court Bulletin: Judge Bids Adieu, TikTok Wants Out

    The North Carolina Business Court's former chief judge hung up his robes for the last time as the court entered the new year with a ruling that shapes the fate of beset real estate company MV Realty's consumer fraud trial and arguments by TikTok Inc. that its platform being "too engaging" isn't enough for the state to begin an enforcement action.

  • January 16, 2025

    DOL Proposes Rule On Valuing Stock For Purchase By ESOPs

    The U.S. Department of Labor proposed a rule Thursday to help plan managers determine the value of company stock for purchase by an employee stock ownership plan while also withdrawing a previous rule that the DOL proposed in 1988 but never finalized.

  • January 15, 2025

    DeFi Upstart Brings On Seasoned Crypto Legal Chief

    Veteran crypto in-house attorney Rebecca Rettig will take on the chief legal officer role at Jito Labs, a developer of products on the Solana blockchain, as the firm's first legal hire, the company announced Thursday.

  • January 15, 2025

    Wells Fargo Unit Sued Over Ex-Rep's EB-5 Investment Scheme

    A Wells Fargo subsidiary has been hit with a suit in Nevada federal court by an attorney and real estate developer who claims she and several other entities were hit with a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement action because the Wells Fargo subsidiary and one of its former employees gave bad investment advice.

  • January 15, 2025

    GE Investors' $362.5M Settlement Gets Initial Greenlight

    Investors in manufacturing giant General Electric Co. have gotten an initial nod for their proposed $362.5 million eve-of-trial deal to end long-running claims that the company fraudulently concealed cash flow problems, allegedly resulting in plummeting shares after its fiscal woes were disclosed.

  • January 15, 2025

    SEC's Last-Minute Musk Suit Could Be Scuttled Under Trump

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's latest lawsuit against Elon Musk is unlikely to be viewed favorably by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, which may press for a lesser penalty or even move to dismiss the case outright, attorneys told Law360 on Wednesday.

  • January 15, 2025

    SEC Says Restaurant Tech Co. Misled Investors On AI Product

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached a non-monetary settlement with Presto Automation Inc. to resolve claims the restaurant technology company made false and misleading statements about aspects of its artificial intelligence product, which uses AI-assisted speech recognition technology to automate aspects of drive-thru order taking at quick-service restaurants.

  • January 15, 2025

    SEC Fines Advisers For Link To Alleged $410M IPO Fraud

    Three investment adviser representatives have agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission nearly $540,000 to end the regulator's claims that they acted as unregistered brokers while soliciting investors for a private equity firm accused of defrauding investors in a $410 million pre-IPO share scheme.

  • January 15, 2025

    SEC Dings Pharma Co., Ex-CFO Over Prescription Scheme

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced it has settled claims against bankrupt DMK Pharmaceuticals Corp. and its ex-chief financial officer over their alleged role in a fraudulent scheme to generate revenues using illegal prescriptions for horse medications.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Being An Artist Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My work as an artist has highlighted how using creativity and precision together — qualities that are equally essential in both art and law — not only improves outcomes, but also leads to more innovative and thoughtful work, says Sarah La Pearl at Segal McCambridge.

  • Election Outcome Could Reshape Financial Industry

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    The policies of the next presidential administration and Congress will shape the landscape of financial services in the U.S. — including banking, mortgage, investment and credit services — for years to come, affecting Wall Street investors and aspiring homeowners alike, say Alexander Hecht and Frank Guinta at Mintz.

  • How Judiciary Can Minimize AI Risks In Secondary Sources

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    Because courts’ standing orders on generative artificial intelligence and other safeguards do not address the risk of hallucinations in secondary source materials, the judiciary should consider enlisting legal publishers and database hosts to protect against AI-generated inaccuracies, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl.

  • Bitnomial Suit Highlights Crypto Turf War Between SEC, CFTC

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    An outcome favoring Bitnomial in its recent lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission could reinforce the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's authority and limit the SEC's reach in the crypto arena, illustrating the need for Congress to delineate boundaries between the agencies, says Tonya Evans at Penn State Dickinson Law.

  • Nvidia Case's Potential Impact On Securities Class Actions

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    In Nvidia v. Ohman Fonder, the U.S. Supreme Court could strip lower courts of their long-standing ability and obligation to holistically weigh all relevant facts supporting plaintiffs' allegations of securities fraud, which would have a wide-ranging impact on securities fraud class actions in the U.S., say attorneys at Labaton Keller.

  • How Attorneys Can Break Free From Career Enmeshment

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    Ambitious attorneys can sometimes experience career enmeshment — when your sense of self-worth becomes unhealthily tangled up in your legal vocation — but taking the time to discover and realign with your core personal values can help you recover your identity, says Janna Koretz at Azimuth Psychological.

  • UCC Article 12 Offers Banks A Chance To Dive Into 'DePINs'

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    The 2022 update to Article 12 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which provides a legal framework for decentralized physical infrastructure networks, could offer trade and commodity finance banks attractive opportunities, like the energy-related DePIN projects that have recently made headlines, says Chris McDermott at Cadwalader.

  • Short-Seller Implications Of 10th Circ.'s Overstock Decision

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    The Tenth Circuit's Oct. 15 decision in Overstock Securities Litigation provides clarity on the pleading standard for a market manipulation claim under the Exchange Act, and suggests that short sellers might not be able to rely on the fraud-on-the-market presumption typically invoked by securities plaintiffs, say attorneys at Paul Weiss.

  • Lawyers With Disabilities Are Seeking Equity, Not Pity

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    Attorneys living with disabilities face extra challenges — including the need for special accommodations, the fear of stigmatization and the risk of being tokenized — but if given equitable opportunities, they can still rise to the top of their field, says Kate Reder Sheikh, a former attorney and legal recruiter at Major Lindsey & Africa.

  • Crypto.com's Suit Against SEC Could Hold Major Implications

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    Crypto.com's recent lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission could affect the operation and regulation of crypto markets in the U.S., potentially raising more questions about the SEC's authority to regulate the industry when it's unclear whether another agency is ready to assume it, say attorneys at McGuireWoods.

  • Opinion

    Judicial Committee Best Venue For Litigation Funding Rules

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    The Advisory Committee on Civil Rules' recent decision to consider developing a rule for litigation funding disclosure is a welcome development, ensuring that the result will be the product of a thorough, inclusive and deliberative process that appropriately balances all interests, says Stewart Ackerly at Statera Capital.

  • The Strategic Advantages Of Appointing A Law Firm CEO

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    The impact on law firms of the recent CrowdStrike outage underscores that the business of law is no longer merely about providing supplemental support for legal practice — and helps explain why some law firms are appointing dedicated, full-time CEOs to navigate the challenges of the modern legal landscape, says Jennifer Johnson at Calibrate Strategies.

  • Don't Phone A Friend: Disclosing Friendships With Executives

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent settlement against a former Church & Dwight chairman for violating proxy disclosure rules by neglecting to disclose his friendship with an executive officer amid a CEO search illustrates the perils of relying solely on responses to questionnaires circulated to boards, say attorneys at BCLP.

  • Why Diversity Jurisdiction Poses Investment Fund Hurdles

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    Federal courts' continued application of the exacting rules of diversity jurisdiction presents particular challenges for investment funds, and in the absence of any near-term reform, those who manage such funds should take action to avoid diversity jurisdiction pitfalls, say attorneys at Sher Tremonte.

  • The Ups And Downs Of SEC's Now-Dissolved ESG Task Force

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Climate and ESG Enforcement Task Force, which was quietly disbanded sometime over the summer, was marked by three years of resistance from some stakeholders to ESG regulation, a mixed record in the courts and several successful enforcement actions, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

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