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Fintech
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April 18, 2024
Wife Of Alleged $3B TelexFree Scammer 'Hounded' In MDL
The estranged wife of alleged TelexFree Ponzi schemer Carlos Wanzeler said Thursday that plaintiffs in a decade-old civil suit are needlessly "hounding" her for information they already have and urged a Massachusetts federal court to free her from the "litigation purgatory."
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April 18, 2024
Crypto Trader Convicted Of $110M Mango Markets Scam
A Manhattan federal jury found a cryptocurrency trader guilty Thursday of illegally taking $110 million out of Mango Markets by inflating the value of its tokens, then borrowing against that valuation to suck money out of the decentralized exchange.
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April 17, 2024
Ethics Panel Douses Judge DQ Talk In 5th Circ. CFPB Case
A judicial ethics panel has concluded that recusal isn't automatically required for the Fifth Circuit judge whose financial disclosures have fueled calls for his disqualification from litigation challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's $8 credit card late fee rule.
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April 17, 2024
NY Settles With Payroll, Prepaid Card Bank For $700K
Pathward, formerly MetaBank, has reached a $700,000 agreement with New York Attorney General Letitia James to resolve allegations the bank broke the law by freezing certain customer accounts and illegally handing over customer money to debt collectors.
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April 17, 2024
SEC Urged To Rethink Whistleblower Awards To Short-Sellers
A University of Kansas law professor has released research showing that a growing number of corporate outsiders, including short-sellers, are receiving whistleblower rewards from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and he told Law360 on Wednesday the agency should reconsider giving money to those who also seek to profit from trading on the tips they call in.
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April 17, 2024
New Stablecoin Bill Eyes Investor Protections, AML Regime
Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R.-Wyo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D.-N.Y., have unveiled their long-awaited proposal to regulate stablecoins, which would require issuers to hold full reserves, ban algorithmic stablecoins and define the authority that state and federal banking regulators will have over the tokens.
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April 17, 2024
Flagstar Bank Beats Overdraft 'Fee Maximization' Suit
A Michigan federal judge has shut down a proposed consumer class action that accused Flagstar Bank of unlawfully charging millions of dollars in surprise overdraft fees, ruling that the bank had provided clarifying disclosures that left no more room for surprise.
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April 17, 2024
Coding Bootcamp Fined $164K For Misleading Student Loans
A company that runs coding "bootcamps" has been permanently banned from consumer lending after U.S. regulators found it inflated its job placement rates to students and lied to them about a tuition financing program that turned out to be risky loans.
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April 17, 2024
Trader's Alleged $110M Mango Markets Fraud In Jury's Hands
A Manhattan federal jury weighed charges Wednesday against a cryptocurrency trader accused of illegally squeezing $110 million out of Mango Markets by inflating the finance platform's tokens, then borrowing against them, allegedly taking "supply and demand into his own hands."
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April 17, 2024
Swedish Tax Investigations Add $90M To Crypto Miners' Bills
Investigations revealed that a number of cryptocurrency mining centers in Sweden misrepresented their business dealings, which led to the Swedish Tax Agency doling out a total of 990 million Swedish krona ($90 million) in increased tax liabilities, the agency said Wednesday.
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April 17, 2024
Bankman-Fried Appeal May Cite Unusual Preview Testimony
Sam Bankman-Fried's appeal of his conviction and 25-year prison sentence may cite a "rather unprecedented" trial procedure in which the FTX founder gave provisional testimony before officially taking the witness stand last year, one of his attorneys said Wednesday.
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April 17, 2024
Judge Merges Axos Bank Suits But Won't Appoint Counsel Yet
A California federal judge has agreed to consolidate a pair of cases over how Axos handled interest rates on savings deposit accounts offered through an online banking division, but rejected its customers' bid to name three law firms as interim co-lead counsel, saying it is not necessary at this time since more consolidation could occur.
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April 17, 2024
IBM Privacy Head Says AI Needs Transparency To Be Trusted
To combat artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes, disinformation and bias requires transparent, open-sourced AI models and swift regulations that protect elections, creators and the public, says IBM's Chief Privacy & Trust Officer Christina Montgomery.
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April 16, 2024
Crypto Co. Can't Be Sued Over 'Scam Token,' 2nd Circ. Hears
The business, founder and venture capital backers behind decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap Labs told the Second Circuit that a New York federal judge was right to dismiss a suit from investors who claimed they bought scam tokens on the platform since the business didn't enter into any contract with buyers.
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April 16, 2024
9th Circ. Upholds Tossing Skillz Gaming Tech Investor Suit
The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday upheld a decision to toss a proposed class action claiming that mobile gaming company Skillz Inc. misled investors about its technology prior to a 2021 merger with a special purpose acquisition company, ruling that issues with the gaming software do not make the company' statements false or misleading.
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April 16, 2024
SEC Hit With Class Action Over Database Privacy Concerns
A conservative think tank filed a lawsuit in Texas federal court Tuesday hoping to put an end to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission market surveillance tool known as the consolidated audit trail, arguing in the proposed class action that the database threatens to subject the personal information of tens of millions of American citizens to a possible data breach.
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April 16, 2024
Genesis To Return $2B Of Crypto Under Gemini Settlement
Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis will return 97% of digital assets from a customer program with crypto platform Gemini by early May after a New York bankruptcy judge on Tuesday approved a settlement that attorneys for Genesis said closes out bitter disputes and sets it up to repay other creditors under a Chapter 11 plan.
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April 16, 2024
CFPB Moves To 'Streamline' How It Tags Nonbanks For Exams
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday unveiled procedural adjustments to its process for singling out fintech firms and other nonbanks for examination, changes the agency attributed in part to plans for an internal reorganization of its supervision and enforcement unit.
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April 16, 2024
Terraform Creditors Say All Clear To Hire Crypto Tracing Firm
The creditors committee for bankrupt cryptocurrency startup Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd. said on Tuesday it had resolved the only issues the U.S. Trustee's Office had with the committee's request to hire an investment bank to advise it on tracing cryptocurrency in Terraform's Chapter 11 case.
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April 16, 2024
Binance.US Adds Ex-NY Fed Compliance Chief To Board
Binance.US announced Tuesday that it had brought aboard a seasoned compliance and regulation expert to join its board of directors, three months after the cryptocurrency platform hired a new top compliance officer amid federal regulators' ongoing scrutiny of the platform.
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April 16, 2024
Chancery Tosses Zelle Fraud Suit Against JPMorgan Directors
A JPMorgan Chase & Co. shareholder that sued the bank's board for allegedly ignoring fraud on the payment platform Zelle has not shown the bank failed to respond to the problem, a Delaware Chancery Court judge ruled Tuesday, dismissing the shareholder's case.
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April 15, 2024
Dems Grill Chamber Over 'Outrageous' CFPB Card Fee Suit
Two top Democratic senators are calling on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to explain why it sued to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's $8 credit card late fee rule, a case they say is "outrageous" and puts the interests of big banks over the group's rank and file.
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April 15, 2024
FTX Liquidators Describe Operating Blindly In Initial Days
The U.S. liquidator for collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX told attendees at the OffshoreAlert Conference in Miami Beach, Florida, the case was unlike any other he'd handled as the company had "no set of books," forcing both onshore and offshore liquidators to scramble to track down assets.
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April 15, 2024
'Pig Butchering' Scams' Human Toll Has Experts Alarmed
Financial institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges and social media companies need to do more to stem a growing tide of so-called pig butchering scams, which experts at the OffshoreAlert Conference in Miami said Monday are wreaking havoc on victims while funding a large human trafficking operation.
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April 15, 2024
Coinbase Wants 2nd Circ. To Weigh Crypto's Howey Question
Crypto exchange Coinbase has asked a Manhattan federal judge to send the question of whether digital assets meet the definition of investment contracts to the Second Circuit, challenging a March order that found the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had adequately pled that the platform offered securities.
Expert Analysis
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Bitcoin ETF Approval Doesn't Mean SEC Approves Of Crypto
While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's approval last month of 11 applications for spot exchange-traded funds tracking bitcoin is a landmark moment for the crypto-asset industry, investors who are hopeful that the SEC will approve similar crypto-based ETFs may be disappointed, says attorneys at Mintz.
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How Proposed Bipartisan Bill Would Reform Bank Exams
If the Fair Audits and Inspections for Regulators’ Exams Act, which was recently introduced by a bipartisan group of senators, were to be enacted, it would particularly benefit small lenders and bank-fintech partnerships by promoting transparency, appellate rights and examiner accountability, say attorneys at Latham.
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Crypto Issues To Watch Amid Evolving Legal Landscape
This year will likely be a momentous one for crypto in the U.S., but whether it is successful or disastrous will depend on the outcome of high-profile court decisions and key regulatory actions, say attorneys at Venable.
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FTC AI Inquiry Signals Intensified Focus On Emerging Tech
The Federal Trade Commission's recent inquiry into investments and partnerships between Big Tech companies and artificial intelligence startups appears to be directed at guiding future enforcement decisions in competition, privacy and consumer protection — and three principles discussed at a related tech summit give insight on the agency's approach, say attorneys at Skadden.
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Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout
While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.
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Series
ESG Around The World: Brazil
Environmental, social and governance issues have increasingly translated into new legislation in Brazil since 2020, and in the wake of these recently enacted regulations, we are likely to see a growing number of legal disputes in the largest South American country related to ESG issues such as greenwashing if companies are not prepared to adequately adapt and comply, say attorneys at Mattos Filho.
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Series
Competing In Dressage Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My lifelong participation in the sport of dressage — often called ballet on horses — has proven that several skills developed through training and competition are transferable to legal work, especially the ability to harness focus, persistence and versatility when negotiating a deal, says Stephanie Coco at V&E.
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What Financial Cos. Must Know For Handling T+1 Settlements
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted a groundbreaking new T+1 settlement rule for securities transactions in order to improve market efficiency — but it presents significant challenges for the financial services industry, especially private equity firms, hedge funds and institutional asset managers, says Adam Weiss at Petra Funds Group.
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Breaking Down FDIC's New Advertising And Signage Rule
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s final rule on signage and advertising, coming on the heels of a campaign against nonbank businesses purporting to offer FDIC-insured deposit products, introduces important new requirements and clarifies existing regulations for both traditional depository institutions and novel digital platforms, say attorneys at Venable.
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The Double-Edged Sword Of Biometrics In Financial Services
Financial institutions are increasingly turning to biometrics for identity verification and fraud prevention, and while there are many benefits to such features, banks must remain vigilant against growing AI technologies that could make users' information vulnerable to biometrics hackers, say Elizabeth Roper at Baker McKenzie and Chris Allgrove at Ingenium Biometric Laboratories.
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The Legal Industry Needs A Cybersecurity Paradigm Shift
As law firms face ever-increasing risks of cyberattacks and ransomware incidents, the legal industry must implement robust cybersecurity measures and privacy-centric practices to preserve attorney-client privilege, safeguard client trust and uphold the profession’s integrity, says Ryan Paterson at Unplugged.
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As Promised, IRS Is Coming For Crypto Tax Evaders
The IRS is fulfilling its promise to crack down on those who have neglected to pay taxes on cryptocurrency earnings, as demonstrated by recently imposed prison sentences, enforcement initiatives and meetings with international counterparts — suggesting a few key takeaways for taxpayer compliance, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.
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5 Reasons Associates Shouldn't Take A Job Just For Money
As a number of BigLaw firms increase salary scales for early-career attorneys, law students and lateral associates considering new job offers should weigh several key factors that may matter more than financial compensation, say Albert Tawil at Lateral Hub and Ruvin Levavi at Power Forward.
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Following Banking Regulators' Breadcrumbs To 2024 Priorities
Through blog posts, speeches, and formal guidance and regulations, prudential and other federal and state financial regulators laid out a road map last year pointing to compliance priorities that should be reflected in financial institutions' planning this year, say Laurel Loomis Rimon and Gina Shabana at Jenner & Block.
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Series
Playing Competitive Tennis Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My experience playing competitive tennis has highlighted why prioritizing exercise and stress relief, maintaining perspective under pressure, and supporting colleagues in pursuit of a common goal are all key aspects of championing a successful legal career, says Madhumita Datta at Lowenstein Sandler.