Securities

  • September 06, 2024

    Biopharm Co., Directors Sued In Del. Over 'Extreme' Scheme

    A five-year run of "extreme and unconscionable self-dealing" has left 62% of Navidea BioPharmaceuticals Inc. equity in the hands of a single stockholder-director, a Delaware Court of Chancery suit has alleged, with the company now deregistered and currently without a viable product.

  • September 06, 2024

    Starbucks Finds Interest For Appeal In Shareholder Suit

    A Washington Court of Appeals commissioner suggested to two Starbucks shareholders on Friday that their lawsuit must "do more than what it does" as of now if they want to accuse corporate leadership of responding illegally to barista unionization, hinting the court will likely take up the coffee giant's appeal.

  • September 06, 2024

    SEC Fraud Suit Against Battery Co. Survives Dismissal Bid

    A California federal judge has rejected battery developer NDB Inc.'s motion to dismiss a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission suit alleging the company and its CEO misled investors about the prospects of so-called nano-diamond battery technology, saying the SEC sufficiently pled that the defendants were the "maker" of statements that were materially misleading to investors.

  • September 06, 2024

    CFTC Loses Court Battle Over Election Betting Contracts

    A Washington, D.C., federal judge ruled against the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday in a case that challenged an agency ban on the use of the derivatives markets to place bets on the outcome of U.S. elections, granting victory to trading platform KalshiEx LLC. 

  • September 06, 2024

    Boeing Loses Bid To Toss Investor Suit Over Blowout

    A Virginia federal judge gave the green light to Boeing investors to continue their securities fraud proposed class suit against the company over one of its planes' midair door blowout in January, rejecting the aerospace giant's motion to dismiss and telling Boeing it had a "real problem" on its hands.

  • September 06, 2024

    Three Defendants Settle SEC's $14M Pot Co. Securities Suit

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reached settlements with three defendants who allegedly misappropriated $14 million in investment funds intended for a cannabis enterprise, with the three agreeing to pay back a total of more than $4 million in disgorgements and interest and $3 million in civil penalties.

  • September 06, 2024

    SEC Accuses Fla. Men Of Mass Tort Litigation Financing Fraud

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday accused a father and son from Florida of running a fraudulent litigation funding scheme by promising investors returns from financing mass tort litigation they were not actually funding.

  • September 06, 2024

    Morgan Stanley Fined $2M Over First Republic Exec's Trades

    Massachusetts' top securities cop on Friday imposed a fine of $2 million on Morgan Stanley for failing to ensure that a New Republic Bank chairman hadn't relied on insider information when he dumped millions of dollars of the bank's stock in the days and months before its collapse.

  • September 06, 2024

    Baker McKenzie M&A Partner Jumps To Bell Nunnally

    Dallas-based business law firm Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP has hired former Baker McKenzie partner Jonathan Farrokhnia, who told Law360 on Friday that his decision to join the firm was based on the advantages that come from working for a smaller firm.

  • September 06, 2024

    SEC Accuses Esmark Of Lying About US Steel Bid

    A failed bid to acquire U.S. Steel has landed Pittsburgh-based Esmark Inc. in hot water with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which announced Friday that it had fined the company and its founder for falsely claiming they had the money to buy the manufacturing giant.

  • September 05, 2024

    Coinbase, Execs Must Face Investor Suit Over Business Risks

    A New Jersey federal judge on Thursday declined to dismiss a consolidated investor class action against Coinbase and its executives over disclosures the cryptocurrency exchange made about certain business risks it faced, although he trimmed certain allegations deemed to be, among other things, corporate puffery.

  • September 05, 2024

    TikToker Conned Followers With Real Estate Fraud, Feds Say

    A social media influencer faces criminal charges and a suit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after he allegedly made false claims to investors that money put into purported real estate projects would earn them passive income.

  • September 05, 2024

    GitLab's AI Hype Was Too Optimistic, Investor Suit Says

    Software development collaboration platform GitLab is the latest company to face claims that it misguided investors about how artificial intelligence might bolster its fortunes as it faced other headwinds, including mounting costs for a China-based joint venture, that caused its share price to sink.

  • September 05, 2024

    CFTC Says Ex-Commish's Signature Was Forged For $1.5M Scam

    The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued the operator of an unlicensed commodity pool for allegedly targeting dozens of Spanish-speaking immigrants in a $1.5 million Ponzi-like scheme that used a fictitious license containing a counterfeit CFTC seal and a forged commissioner signature to falsely promise investors guaranteed monthly returns.

  • September 05, 2024

    Class Attys Vie To Lead Drug Co. Insider Trading Suit In Del.

    A courtroom face-off over lead stockholder counsel duties in a Delaware Chancery Court case accusing a biopharmaceutical company's directors of insider trading and fiduciary duty breaches got edgy Thursday, after one of the plaintiff-side legal teams contended that the other's case was irreparably hobbled by conflicts of interest.

  • September 05, 2024

    Ex-SEC Enforcement Atty Joins Whistleblower Law Boutique

    Kohn Kohn & Colapinto announced Thursday that a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney will join the whistleblower law firm as senior special counsel.

  • September 05, 2024

    Investment Firm Fights Order To Return Docs In NJ Bias Suit

    A Black-owned investment firm accusing BlackRock Inc. and New Jersey of squeezing it out of a lucrative contract has challenged a U.S. magistrate judge's order to return redacted emails to the Garden State, arguing that the order was made without a full written record or a requested conference on the privilege dispute.

  • September 05, 2024

    Circor Dodges SEC Fine As Ex-Exec Faces Falsified Docs Suit

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said industrial valve manufacturer Circor International Inc. has avoided a penalty after it self-reported and remediated an alleged accounting scheme, while the agency sued a former executive accused of falsifying the financial results for one of the company's business units.

  • September 05, 2024

    Pharma Co. Verrica Fails To Shed Investor Suit Over FDA OK

    A Pennsylvania federal judge has partially denied Verrica Phamaceuticals Inc.'s second request to throw out a proposed class action filed by investors who claim the company defrauded them by hiding obstacles it faced in obtaining approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its lead product.

  • September 05, 2024

    Ga. Investment Adviser To Pay $335K To End SEC Suit

    Atlanta-based West Mountain LLC and its director, Paul Alar, will pay $335,000 and take other steps to resolve a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission complaint alleging they fraudulently overvalued assets and collected inflated fees.

  • September 05, 2024

    CrowdStrike Brass Face Investor Suit Over Global Outage

    Executives and directors of global cybersecurity company CrowdStrike have been hit with a shareholder derivative suit alleging that they overstated the capabilities of the company's technology that eventually caused a massive disruption over the summer when its system crashed.

  • September 05, 2024

    7th Circ. Doubts JPMorgan Traders' Spoofing Appeal

    The Seventh Circuit seemed skeptical Thursday about three former JPMorgan traders' assertion that evidentiary issues surrounding their underlying spoofing trials warrant unwinding their convictions for manipulating the market with fake orders for precious metals.

  • September 05, 2024

    2nd Circ. Chilly To Mortgage-Backed Securities ERISA Suit

    The Second Circuit appeared unlikely Thursday to revive a union pension fund's suit looking to hold Wells Fargo and Ocwen Financial Corp. liable for losses on mortgage-backed securities, with two judges signaling the risky loans the fund sued over might not be covered by federal benefits law.

  • September 05, 2024

    Chancery Presses Pause On $450M Bolt Financial Financing

    Affiliates of multinational investors Hedosophia and BlackRock have won a Delaware Court of Chancery pause of a purported Bolt Financial Inc. $450 million equity financing that would eliminate and replace all the company's preferred stock while returning founder Ryan Breslow to his CEO seat.

  • September 05, 2024

    Cooley Hires Corporate Governance Pro As Strategic Adviser

    Cooley LLP has hired a thought leader with expertise in securities regulation as a strategic adviser to provide content for clients, including a new blog to give guidance on all types of governance issues, the firm announced Thursday.

Expert Analysis

  • In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State

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    On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.

  • How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.

  • First-Of-Its-Kind Chancery Ruling Will Aid SPAC Defendants

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    The Delaware Chancery Court's first full dismissal of claims challenging a special purpose acquisition company transaction under the entire fairness doctrine in the recent Hennessy Capital Acquisition Stockholder Litigation establishes useful precedent to abate the flood of SPAC litigation, say Lisa Bugni and Benjamin Lee at King & Spalding.

  • How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts

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    As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.

  • Supreme Court's ALJ Ruling Carries Implications Beyond SEC

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    In its recent Jarkesy opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the types of cases that can be tried before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house administrative law judges, setting the stage for challenges to the constitutionality of ALJs across other agencies, say Robert Robertson and Kimberley Church at Dechert.

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.

  • Series

    After Chevron: No Deference, No Difference For SEC Or CFTC

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    The Chevron doctrine did not fundamentally alter the interplay between the courts and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the development of the securities and commodities laws — and its demise will not do so either, says Dan Berkovitz at Millennium Management.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Roundup

    After Chevron

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    In the month since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference standard, this Expert Analysis series has featured attorneys discussing the potential impact across 26 different rulemaking and litigation areas.

  • Opinion

    Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem

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    The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.

  • Proposed Customer ID Rule Could Cost Investment Advisers

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    A rule recently proposed by FinCEN and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to make financial advisers collect more customer information parallels an anti-money laundering and counterterrorism rule proposed this spring, but firms may face new compliance costs when implementing these screening programs, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • What Passage Of House Crypto Bill Could Mean For Industry

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    While the prospects of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, which recently passed the House in a bipartisan fashion, becoming law remain murky, the manner of its passage may give crypto markets a real cause for hope, say Neel Maitra and Dale Beggs at Dechert.

  • What 2 Rulings On Standing Mean For DEI Litigation

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    Recent federal court decisions in the Fearless Fund and Hello Alice cases shed new light on the ongoing wave of challenges to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, with opposite conclusions on whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue, say attorneys at Moore & Van Allen.

  • Series

    Skiing And Surfing Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    The skills I’ve learned while riding waves in the ocean and slopes in the mountains have translated to my legal career — developing strong mentor relationships, remaining calm in difficult situations, and being prepared and able to move to a backup plan when needed, says Brian Claassen at Knobbe Martens.

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