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Securities
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September 20, 2024
Chevron's Demise May Not Bring Deluge Courts Had Feared
Though the death of Chevron deference has opened a door to attacking administrative decisions, the expected uptick in litigation probably won't threaten to clog federal courts, numerous administrative law experts told Law360.
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September 20, 2024
Ex-Stradley Ronon Securities Leader Joins Chapman In DC
An attorney with more than two decades of experience in investment securities has moved his practice to Chapman and Cutler LLP's Washington, D.C., office after 22 years with Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young LLP.
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September 19, 2024
CFTC Warns Of 'Profound' Harm In Election Betting Appeal
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission fought Thursday to prevent an online trading platform from offering betting on election outcomes while the agency appeals a trial court ruling that allowed the futures contracts to go live, warning the D.C. Circuit that the "high-stakes" event contracts threaten serious harm to election integrity.
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September 19, 2024
4th Circ. Won't Flip Fraud Convictions Over Unseen Jury
The Fourth Circuit has refused to overturn two men's investment-fraud convictions over complaints that COVID safety protocols made the jury invisible to the public, but vacated part of one sentence because probation conditions weren't adequately spelled out.
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September 19, 2024
Texas Judge Tosses Crypto Co.'s SEC Challenge As 'Unripe'
A Texas federal judge found Thursday that blockchain firm Consensys can't sue the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a determination that its MetaMask software doesn't offend securities laws because the agency's threat of enforcement and subsequent suit aren't final actions the court can review.
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September 19, 2024
Feds Can't Order $31M To Refill Class Funds, 3rd Circ. Told
A New Jersey man convicted for stealing $40 million from settlements in stockholder class actions told a Third Circuit panel Thursday the multimillion-dollar restitution ordered at his sentencing is unlawful and should be vacated, arguing that the settlements weren't harmed.
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September 19, 2024
Apple's $490M Deal Over China Sales OK'ed, Attys Get $110M
A California federal judge approved Apple Inc.'s $490 million securities fraud settlement under which class counsel will receive $110.45 million in fees and costs plus interest, resolving years-old litigation alleging Apple and its top brass misled investors about iPhone sales in China.
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September 19, 2024
'Biblical Values' Firm To Pay $300K For Misleading Investors
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday order Idaho-based investment adviser Inspire Investing LLC to pay a $300,000 fine on allegations it made misleading statements and failed to institute compliance measures related to the firm's execution of its "biblically responsible investing" strategy.
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September 19, 2024
Scammers Bilked At Least $230M In Bitcoin, Feds Say
Two people were arrested and charged with conspiring to steal and launder at least $230 million in bitcoin, allegedly using online monikers like "Anne Hathaway" and "VersaceGod," federal prosecutors said Thursday.
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September 19, 2024
Crypto Exchange Must Refund Bitcoins, But In 2013 Dollars
A New York judge held Thursday that bygone cryptocurrency exchange Bitfloor improperly failed to return more than 200 of its customers' bitcoins upon shutting down in 2013, but said damages will be limited to the dollar value of the digital assets over a decade ago.
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September 19, 2024
Outcome Exec Who Flipped Gets 7 Months For $1B Fraud Role
A former Outcome Health sales chief who was charged with helping to carry out a $1 billion fraud, but cooperated early and testified against his co-defendants, received seven months in prison Thursday for his role in the scheme.
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September 19, 2024
Judge Gives Dow Jones Win In Article Thievery Case
A Texas federal judge has handed a win to publisher Dow Jones & Co. in a copyright infringement suit accusing an investment manager of wrongfully copying and distributing thousands of news articles from The Wall Street Journal.
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September 19, 2024
Macquarie Unit To Pay $80M To End SEC's Overvaluation Claims
A subsidiary of Australian financial services company Macquarie Group Ltd. agreed Thursday to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission nearly $80 million to settle charges it overvalued largely illiquid mortgage-backed securities and carried out cross-trades that favored certain clients over others.
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September 19, 2024
Amazon, Bezos Deny Blue Origin Deal Challenges In Del.
An Amazon.com stockholder suit seeking damages from the e-commerce giant for purportedly conflicted dealing with company founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space launch business can't get off the ground in Delaware's Court of Chancery, attorneys for the Amazon parties argued in a new brief filed late Wednesday.
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September 19, 2024
Halted DOL Fiduciary Regs Could Open Lane For SEC Action
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission might need to help clear up confusion about fiduciary investment advice standards in the wake of two Texas judges halting new retirement security regulations from the Labor Department, members of an SEC investor advisory committee said Thursday.
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September 19, 2024
No Coverage For Santander Shareholder Suit, Allianz Says
Allianz told a Massachusetts federal court that it doesn't owe coverage to Santander Holdings for an underlying class action brought by shareholders over the company's $2.5 billion deal to take its consumer finance entity private, arguing that multiple exclusions bar coverage for claims arising from the transaction.
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September 19, 2024
Pro Volleyball League's Founders Claim Buyers Shorted Them
The co-founders of the Pro Volleyball Federation, a women's professional volleyball league, are seeking at least $500,000 in damages in a new suit that alleges they haven't been paid by several team owners in the league who formed an entity to buy the co-founders' Class A shares of the federation for $1 million.
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September 19, 2024
Feds Oppose Overturning Guilty Verdict For Crypto Trader
Federal prosecutors told a New York federal judge that the crypto trader convicted of fraudulently draining more than $100 million from platform Mango Markets is wrongly attempting to recast factual issues as legal questions in his bid for acquittal.
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September 18, 2024
SEC Says Unregistered DeFi Project Pooled $1B In Crypto
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced settlements with the business and co-founders behind decentralized finance, or DeFi, project Rari Capital Inc. on Wednesday after the regulator accused the project of misleading investors and acting as an unregistered broker.
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September 18, 2024
PureCycle Investors Seek Final OK Of $12M Settlement
Investors in plastic recycling company PureCycle have asked a Florida federal judge to grant final approval to a $12 million deal to end a proposed class action alleging the company misled shareholders about its technology, financial projections and access to raw materials, roughly two years after the court temporarily tossed it for being imprecise.
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September 18, 2024
Split 5th Circ. Upholds Oxy's $38M Win Over Wells Fargo Bank
A split Fifth Circuit panel upheld a $38 million judgment against Wells Fargo in a published opinion Wednesday, affirming that the bank breached its trustee duties by failing to timely sell Occidental Petroleum Corp. stock and is judicially estopped from arguing that the trust agreement was not a contract.
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September 18, 2024
First Horizon To Pay SEC $325K Over Reg BI Violations
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Wednesday that First Horizon Advisors Inc. will pay a $325,000 penalty to settle claims the broker-dealer violated Regulation Best Interest in the wake of its parent company's 2020 merger with IberiaBank Corp.
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September 18, 2024
Wynn Resorts To Pay Investors $70M Over Misconduct Claims
Wynn Resorts, its former CEO Stephen Wynn and others have reached a $70 million settlement in Nevada federal court to end an investor class action accusing the hotel and casino giant of deceiving shareholders by covering up allegations of Wynn's sexual misconduct, according to a Tuesday filing.
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September 18, 2024
SEC Must Clarify Murky Crypto Rules, Ex-Officials Tell House
Two former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission officials who now represent crypto businesses told House lawmakers Wednesday that the agency's insistence on analyzing the economic realities of every crypto transaction in lieu of clear rulemaking has put the sector and its attorneys in unworkable situations.
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September 18, 2024
FTX Auditor Prager Metis Settles SEC Charges For Negligence
The former auditor of Sam Bankman-Fried's defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX agreed Tuesday to pay $1.95 million to resolve allegations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of misconduct in FTX audits and, in a separate case, violations of auditor independence rules.
Expert Analysis
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Del. Dispatch: 27.6% Stockholder Not A Controller
The Delaware Court of Chancery's recent decision in Sciannella v. AstraZeneca — which found that the pharma giant, a 26.7% stockholder of Viela Bio Inc., was not a controller of Viela, despite having management control — shows that overall context matters when challenging transactions on breach of fiduciary duty grounds, say attorneys at Fried Frank.
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Cyber Incident Response Checklist For SEC Compliance
In light of recent guidance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which clarified the distinction between two types of cybersecurity incident disclosures, companies should align their materiality assessment, incident response and disclosure control processes to bolster compliance and provide a measure of protection, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
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Loss Causation Ruling Departs From Usual Securities Cases
A California federal court recently dismissed Ramos v. Comerica, finding that the allegations failed to establish loss causation, but the reasoning is in tension with the pleading-stage approaches generally followed by both courts and economists in securities fraud litigation, say Jesse Jensen and Aasiya Glover at Bernstein Litowitz.
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A Simple Proposal For Improving E-Discovery In MDLs
Given the importance of e-discovery in multidistrict litigation, courts, parties and counsel shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel in each newly consolidated case — and a simple process for sharing e-discovery lessons and knowledge across MDLs could benefit everyone involved, particularly clients, say Benjamin Barnett and Shauna Itri at Seeger Weiss.
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Opinion
Now More Than Ever, Lawyers Must Exhibit Professionalism
As society becomes increasingly fractured and workplace incivility is on the rise, attorneys must champion professionalism and lead by example, demonstrating how lawyers can respectfully disagree without being disagreeable, says Edward Casmere at Norton Rose.
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What FTX Case Taught Us About Digital Asset Recoverability
FTX's Chapter 11 plan has drawn lots of attention, but the focus should be on the anticipated outcome for investors, which counters several myths about digital currencies, innovation and recoverability, says Kyla Curley at StoneTurn.
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How To Survive Shareholder Activism
In an era where shareholder activism is on the rise, companies must identify weaknesses, clearly communicate strategies, update board composition and engage with shareholders consistently in order to avoid disruptive shareholder activism and safeguard the interests of both the company and its shareholders, say J.T. Ho at Orrick and Greg Taxin at Spotlight Advisors.
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'Outsourcing' Ruling, 5 Years On: A Warning, Not A Watershed
A New York federal court’s 2019 ruling in U.S. v. Connolly, holding that the government improperly outsourced an investigation to Deutsche Bank, has not undercut corporate cooperation incentives as feared — but companies should not completely ignore the lessons of the case, say Temidayo Aganga-Williams and Anna Nabutovsky at Selendy Gay.
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Series
Serving In The National Guard Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My ongoing military experience as a judge advocate general in the National Guard has shaped me as a person and a lawyer, teaching me the importance of embracing confidence, balance and teamwork in both my Army and civilian roles, says Danielle Aymond at Baker Donelson.
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Will Texas Stock Exchange Provide Regulatory Haven?
While the newly proposed Texas Stock Exchange may represent a market reaction to increasingly complex regulations, those looking to list on a national securities exchange should consider that their choice of an exchange may not relieve them of some of the most burdensome public company requirements, say Elizabeth McNichol and Ryan Lilley at Katten.
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Equity Rights Offering Considerations As Maturity Cliff Looms
Current market uncertainties make an equity rights offering — involving affiliate backstop investors — a cost-effective, capital-raising transaction for distressed companies looking to manage their leverage ahead of the impending maturity of a substantial number of COVID-era debt issuances, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.
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A Checklist For Lenders Preparing For CRE Loan Defaults
Considering the recent interest rate environment, lenders should brush up on the proper steps that they should take when preparing to respond to a borrower's default on a commercial real estate loan, and borrowers should understand what lenders will be reviewing, says attorney Norma Williams.
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Opinion
Discount Window Reform Needed To Curb Modern Bank Runs
We learned during the spring 2023 failures that bank runs can happen extraordinarily fast in light of modern technology, especially when banks have a greater concentration of large deposits, demonstrating that the antiquated but effective discount window needs to be overhauled before the next crisis, says Cris Cicala at Stinson.
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Series
In The CFPB Playbook: Making Good On Bold Promises
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure in the second quarter cleared the way for the bureau to resume a number of high-priority initiatives, and it appears poised to charge ahead in working toward its aggressive preelection agenda, say Andrew Arculin and Paula Vigo Marqués at Blank Rome.