White Collar

  • February 05, 2025

    SEC Moves Under Trump Risk 'Chilling' Staff, Grewal Says

    The reported scaling-back of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's crypto enforcement unit by the new Republican SEC majority could make staff at the agency more fearful of doing their jobs and put investors in jeopardy, former SEC enforcement director Gurbir Grewal said Wednesday.

  • February 05, 2025

    Latham Adds Ex-SEC Pro, GC To NY Roster

    The former acting director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement arm and a private capital specialist with in-house and private practice experience have come aboard Latham & Watkins LLP, the firm announced Wednesday, marking the latest in a flurry of lateral hires entering Latham's New York office since fall 2024.

  • February 05, 2025

    Girardi Keese Trustee Sues NY Atty Who Funded Girardi

    The bankruptcy trustee for disgraced California attorney Tom Girardi's defunct law firm is suing to prevent New York attorney Joseph DiNardo from discharging $7.5 million in his own bankruptcy, claiming DiNardo received the money by helping Girardi defraud his own clients.

  • February 05, 2025

    Ex-Ga. DA Beats Charges Over Ahmaud Arbery Murder Probe

    A Georgia state judge on Wednesday tossed a criminal case against a former Georgia district attorney who was accused of obstructing the investigation of the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

  • February 05, 2025

    Goldstein, Saying He's Mired In Debt, Asks To Redo Bail Terms

    Prominent U.S. Supreme Court attorney and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein has a negative net worth of more than $3.3 million and is mired in debt to his attorneys, he said in a filing Wednesday seeking to modify the conditions of his release ahead of a trial on federal criminal tax evasion charges.

  • February 05, 2025

    As Adams Case Teeters, A DOJ 'Ideal' Hangs In The Balance

    The public courtship between New York City Mayor Eric Adams and President Donald Trump is worrying some white collar legal experts, who say that Trump influencing the U.S. Department of Justice to drop Adams' corruption case would depart from over 40 years of policies aimed at keeping politics out of prosecutorial decisions.

  • February 05, 2025

    NY Mayor Adams Can't Get More Indictment Info, Judge Rules

    A Manhattan federal judge denied a request from New York City Mayor Eric Adams to get more details about the government's bribery and corruption case against him, saying his indictment suffices for now.

  • February 05, 2025

    Troutman Pepper Brings On Former DOJ Official In Texas

    Troutman Pepper Locke LLP has expanded the firm's regulatory investigations, strategy and enforcement practice group at the state and national levels with a partner in Austin, Texas, whose background includes decades of government legal experience.

  • February 04, 2025

    Dems Call For Another Hearing For Patel Over FBI Upheaval

    Kash Patel had his nomination hearing to be FBI director less than a week ago, but Democrats and outside groups want him to appear before lawmakers again due to the agency officials fired and sidelined in recent days, and questions raised about Patel's past consulting work, according to letters written to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

  • February 04, 2025

    Ex-NY Real Estate Atty Gets 4½ Years For $3.3M Client Con

    A former New York City attorney on Tuesday was sentenced to over four years in prison, following his admission to stealing $3.3 million in client funds for purported real estate deals.

  • February 04, 2025

    Ex-Philly Union Head's Nephew Avoids Jail In Extortion Case

    The nephew of a now-imprisoned former leader of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 received a nonincarceratory sentence in Philadelphia federal court Tuesday after admitting that he tried to violently extort a casino contractor out of undeserved pay.

  • February 04, 2025

    SEC Could Greenlight Crypto Trading Under New Task Force

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new crypto task force could bless the trading of certain tokens on nonregulated exchanges as the industry awaits agency rulemaking or legislation setting out the new rules of the road for crypto, the task force's leader said Tuesday in a statement laying out her agenda.

  • February 04, 2025

    Senate Confirms Pam Bondi To Be AG

    The U.S. Senate voted 54-46 on Tuesday to confirm Pam Bondi to be attorney general.

  • February 04, 2025

    DLA Piper Partner To Testify At Cognizant Evidence Hearing

    Prosecutors told a New Jersey federal judge Tuesday that the managing partner of DLA Piper's Houston office will testify at a Feb. 18 evidentiary hearing in a criminal bribery case against two former executives of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., which tapped the law firm for an internal investigation into the alleged corrupt scheme in India.

  • February 04, 2025

    SEC Receiver, Atty Agree To Settle Fraud Transfer Claims

    A court-appointed receiver for a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission case has reached a settlement with parties who allegedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of transfers from a fraudulent foreign exchange trading scheme, including the attorney and family of a convicted executive.

  • February 04, 2025

    SEC Says Pre-IPO Stock Firm Was $70M Boiler Room Scheme

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused several New York City residents of participating in a fraudulent scheme in which sales representatives allegedly used high-pressure tactics to induce investments in private companies that had not yet held initial public offerings, while benefiting from the hidden fees charged to investors.

  • February 04, 2025

    Ex-Celsius VP Cops To Insider Trading In Florida Case

    A former vice president and head accountant of Celsius Holdings Inc. pled guilty to insider trading Tuesday in Florida federal court, admitting that he used confidential information about sales expectations to buy securities in the energy drink company and sold them a month later at a profit.

  • February 04, 2025

    Ex-NJ Mayor Gets Probation For Defying Public Office Ban

    The former mayor of the third-largest city in New Jersey has been sentenced to three years of probation for trying to retake the mayoral office in 2022, in violation of a 2017 judicial order banning him from running for or holding public office, the state attorney general and the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability announced Tuesday.

  • February 04, 2025

    Docs Say DEA Didn't Put All Documents In Pot Hearing Record

    A group of doctors who had petitioned to halt the Drug Enforcement Administration's hearings on whether to reschedule cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act are asking the D.C. Circuit to order the agency to add documents to the record that they say have been wrongly excluded.

  • February 04, 2025

    DOJ Criminal Division Leader Joins White & Case's DC Shop

    White & Case LLP announced on Tuesday it was growing its white collar team with the addition of partner Brent Wible, who told Law360 Pulse that it was time for him to step back into private practice following a five-year stint with the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • February 04, 2025

    Guo Trustee Gets OK To Keep Law Firm Deal Sealed For Now

    The Chapter 11 trustee overseeing convicted Chinese fraudster Miles Guo's bankruptcy estate can keep secret for 180 days an adversary proceeding settlement with a New York law firm because similar clawback cases should proceed without being impacted by the terms of the deal, a Connecticut bankruptcy judge has ruled.

  • February 04, 2025

    FBI Agents, Workers Sue To Stop Trump's Threatened Purge

    FBI staff members filed two suits against the Trump administration on Tuesday in D.C. federal court, seeking to stop the president from compiling a list of agents and employees who worked on investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and his retention and storage of classified documents.

  • February 04, 2025

    NYC Mayor's Ex-Aide Seeks Wiretap Data As DA Investigates

    Defense counsel for the former chief adviser to New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday pushed state prosecutors to expand access to evidence of alleged bribery tied to ongoing probes.

  • February 04, 2025

    Former Conn. US Attorney Returns To McCarter & English

    Vanessa Roberts Avery, who recently stepped down as U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, has returned to her roots as a business litigator at McCarter & English LLP in Hartford, Connecticut.

  • February 04, 2025

    Late Developer's Atty Asks For Help To Determine Privilege

    The attorney of Sergio Pino, the late founder and CEO of Century Homebuilders Group LLC, asked a Florida judge Tuesday to appoint a special master to review privileged documents requested by Pino's estate regarding entities the attorneys helped Pino set up and asset transfers he worked on.

Expert Analysis

  • What's Next For Accounting Enforcement After SEC's Big 2024

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Trump administration will likely continue to focus enforcement efforts on many of the same accounting and auditing issues that it pursued over the past year — but other areas, such as ESG, internal controls and cryptocurrency cases, may fall out of focus, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Mentorship Resolutions For The New Year

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    Attorneys tend to focus on personal achievements or career milestones when they set yearly goals, but one important area often gets overlooked in this process — mentoring relationships, which are some of the most effective tools for professional growth, say Kelly Galligan at Rutan & Tucker and Andra Greene at Phillips ADR.

  • The Most Important Schedule I Drug Regulatory Shifts Of 2024

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    In 2024, psychedelics and cannabis emerged as focal points in medical research, marking a pivotal year in their legal and regulatory journey, but these developments presented both opportunities and challenges within this evolving field, say Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell and Stephen Kim at Avicanna.

  • UPS Penalty Demonstrates Goodwill Impairment Red Flags

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent $45 million penalty against UPS for withholding reports of goodwill impairment should warn investors to watch for the telltale signs of companies inflating their worth by delaying tests that would reveal similar declines in the value of intangible assets, say attorneys at Labaton Keller.

  • Series

    Coaching Little League Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While coaching poorly played Little League Baseball early in the morning doesn't sound like a good time, I love it — and the experience has taught me valuable lessons about imperfection, compassion and acceptance that have helped me grow as a person and as a lawyer, says Alex Barnett at DiCello Levitt.

  • 5 Litigation Funding Trends To Note In 2025

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    Lawyers and their clients must be prepared to navigate an evolving litigation funding market in 2025, made more complicated by a new administration and the increasing overall cost of litigation, says Jeffery Lula at GLS Capital.

  • Despite Political Divide, FEC Found Common Ground In '24

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    The Federal Election Commission, although evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, reached consensus in consequential advisory opinions, enforcement actions and regulations last year, offering welcome clarity on some key questions facing campaigns, PACs and parties, say attorneys at Covington.

  • For Accounting Integrity, Start With The Rank-And-File

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    Macy's acknowledgment of an employee's accounting mistake underscores a valuable lesson for company leaders in fostering compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act by cultivating a culture committed to strong accounting integrity and robust oversight, say Keerthika Subramanian and Jon Mantis at Winston & Strawn.

  • Rethinking Litigation Risk And What It Really Means To Win

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    Attorneys have a tendency to overestimate litigation risk before summary judgment and underestimate risk after it, but an eight-stage litigation framework can clarify risk at different points and help litigators reassess what true success looks like in any particular case, says Joshua Libling at Arcadia Finance.

  • Takeaways From SEC's Registered Investment Cos. Risk Alert

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Examinations' recent risk alert pertaining to registered investment companies provides a high-level overview of its risk-based approach to selecting RICs for examination — a potential hint that the division is investigating some of the covered topics, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • Public Corruption Enforcement In 2024 Has Clues For 2025

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    If 2024 activity is any indication, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely continue to rein in expansive prosecutorial theories of fraud in the year to come, but it’s harder to predict what the new administration will mean for public corruption prosecutions in 2025, says Cathy Fleming at Offit Kurman.

  • Small Biz Caught In Corporate Transparency Act Crossfire

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    Despite compliance being put on hold due to a nationwide preliminary injunction, small businesses have been caught in the middle of the legal battle over the Corporate Transparency Act — and confusion over the law's requirements could result in major penalties, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.

  • Examining DOJ Corporate Whistleblower Pilot's First 100 Days

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    Though the U.S. Department of Justice’s corporate whistleblower awards pilot program has successfully elicited numerous tips since its August launch, stakeholder feedback leaves questions about how the scheme compares to other whistleblower awards and protections — and how it will fare in the incoming Trump administration, say attorneys at Joseph Greenwald.

  • Calif. Justices' Options In Insurance Exhaustion Case

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    Fox Paine v. Twin City Fire Insurance may serve as the California Supreme Court's opportunity to firmly establish precedent with respect to a strict adherence to excess insurance policies' exhaustion provisions when the language is clear and explicit, says Aiden Spencer at Langsam Stevens.

  • Series

    Playing Rugby Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My experience playing rugby, including a near-fatal accident, has influenced my legal practice on a professional, organizational and personal level by showing me the importance of maintaining empathy, fostering team empowerment and embracing the art of preparation, says James Gillenwater at Greenberg Traurig.

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