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Securities
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August 14, 2024
Future Claim Question Clouds Chancery Trampoline Park Deal
A Chancery Court settlement that would assure founding investors in a chain of trampoline parks a fair stake in the company despite a controller's allegedly self-interested loans stopped just short of approval Wednesday, with a vice chancellor seeking assurances that the deal will pass state Supreme Court muster.
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August 14, 2024
Judge Blocks Missouri's Anti-ESG Rules, Handing SIFMA Win
A Missouri federal judge found Wednesday that the state's anti-ESG rules for brokers and advisers violate the First Amendment and are preempted by federal laws, handing the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association an early win in its suit against state officials.
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August 14, 2024
SC Justices Agree To Hear Murdaugh's Jury Tampering Claim
South Carolina's Supreme Court has agreed to hear disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh's appeal claiming a clerk of court tampered with the jury that convicted him of murder, invoking a rule that bypasses intermediate appeals when "significant public interest or a legal principle of major importance" hangs in the balance.
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August 14, 2024
Ex-Binance GC Joins Crypto Co. Bitget As Legal Chief
Seychelles-based crypto exchange Bitget on Wednesday announced it has hired a new chief legal officer who, among other roles, served as general counsel at Binance prior to its high-profile settlement with U.S. authorities last year.
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August 14, 2024
SEC Says Ga. Firm's Ponzi Scheme Fueled 'Lavish' Lifestyle
An Atlanta-area firm that promised investors lucrative returns on real estate deals was in reality running a "classic Ponzi scheme" by funneling portions of the $300 million it received into buying a yacht and a luxury condo for its founder, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.
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August 13, 2024
Atlassian Again Beats Investor Suit Over Software Co.'s Slump
Investors in software company Atlassian Corp. haven't shored up claims that the company hid a slowdown in a key growth metric before a 2022 earnings miss, a San Francisco federal judge has decided, dismissing a proposed class action but giving plaintiffs one more shot at their claims.
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August 13, 2024
Musk Can't Ax Fraud Suit Over Twitter Buy, Investors Say
A pension fund has fired back at Elon Musk's bid to dismiss the rest of its amended proposed securities fraud class action in New York federal court that alleges the X Corp. CEO covertly bought more than 5% of Twitter's stocks to save more than $143 million before announcing his intent to buy the social media platform.
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August 13, 2024
Judge Urged To Toss Novel Insider Trading Conviction
Former Ontrak CEO Terren Peizer has moved to rid himself of a first-of-its-kind insider trading conviction, arguing that the government's case "watered down" the standard it had to prove by failing to demonstrate that he believed Ontrak was about to lose its biggest customer at the time he shed $20 million in stock.
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August 13, 2024
SEC Drops Insider Trading Suit Against Ex-Mylan Exec
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday dismissed a Pennsylvania federal suit accusing the former chief information officer of Mylan NV of insider trading due to what his attorneys describe as compelling evidence showing his innocence, seven months after the Department of Justice dropped a parallel criminal case.
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August 13, 2024
Fund Manager Seeks Del. Legal Fee Rulings In Ponzi Fight
Attorneys for a former hedge fund manager now entangled in wide-ranging Ponzi scheme allegations urged a Delaware vice chancellor on Tuesday toward quick action on his legal fee indemnification claims, citing "great risk" from mounting personal liability exposure.
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August 13, 2024
Intuit Can't Escape Ex-Employee's 401(k) Forfeiture Suit
A California federal judge has rejected Intuit's bid to toss a former employee's proposed class action claiming the company improperly used money from forfeited, nonvested accounts to reduce its own 401(k) matching contributions, but the judge trimmed claims the plaintiff agreed to drop related to the plan's administrative committee.
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August 13, 2024
Nvidia Urges High Court To Rein In 'Abusive' Investor Suits
Chip manufacturer Nvidia Corp. filed its opening salvo Tuesday in a bid for U.S. Supreme Court victory over investors who accuse the company of downplaying its reliance on the crypto mining market, arguing that a lower court decision allowing the case to move forward "eviscerates the guardrails that Congress erected to protect the public from abusive securities litigation."
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August 13, 2024
Coinbase Says Scope Of Discovery Was Set By SEC Suit
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase told a New York federal judge that if its discovery requests for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are onerous for the regulator, the agency's own claims in the registration suit are to blame.
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August 13, 2024
FINRA Flags Potential Pitfalls As Members Wade Into Crypto
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority on Tuesday raised potential problem areas it has noticed related to members' dealings in crypto assets as part of a broader update on how the firms it oversees are wading into digital assets.
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August 13, 2024
Tesla, Stockholder Feud In Del. Over Texas Move's Validity
Tesla inc. has fired a Delaware Court of Chancery broadside at a stockholder claim that the company failed to collect a required two-thirds majority vote to convert from a Delaware to a Texas-chartered company, saying the supermajority applies to charter changes rather than Tesla's corporate "redomestication."
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August 13, 2024
Air Taxi Co. Investor Ends Suit After Exec Indemnity Vote Fails
A stockholder suit against electric air taxi developer Archer Aviation Inc. has been declared moot after the company acknowledged it didn't have enough shareholder votes in favor of a measure that would indemnify its executives.
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August 13, 2024
Gene Tech Co. Execs Pilfered Biz Amid Collapse, Suit Says
The senior lender to Sequencing Health Inc. has sued former officers and directors of the now-defunct genomic science company, alleging they squandered the company's assets, awarded themselves big bonuses and shut down the business, costing Oxford tens of millions of dollars in losses.
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August 13, 2024
DOJ Gets Crash Course In AI As Attys Brace For Crackdown
The U.S. Department of Justice is working to keep pace with the swift rise of the tools known as artificial intelligence, investigating potential fraud as its Criminal Division learns the nuances of the technology — an unsettling dynamic for some defense lawyers.
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August 13, 2024
3D Printing Co. Investor Wants Merger With Israeli Co. Blocked
An investor of 3D printing solutions company Desktop Metal Inc. is attempting to stop the company's proposed merger with Israeli manufacturing firm Nano Dimension Ltd., saying Desktop Metal's deficient proxy statement shows only benefits for the company's executives and directors.
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August 13, 2024
Miami Investor Sues In Del. For Cash From London Manor Sale
A Florida investor with a 25% stake in a historic manor house in west London has sued the manager of the Delaware limited liability company formed to invest in the property, alleging it has been sold for about $18 million without him receiving any proceeds.
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August 13, 2024
Ex-Tilray Exec Can Collect $4M Arbitration Award
A Minnesota federal judge has confirmed a more than $4 million arbitration award in favor of a former Tilray Brands Inc. executive who took the company to arbitration over her termination, finding that the pharmaceutical company hasn't established that the award should be vacated.
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August 12, 2024
Nasdaq Isn't Immune From Racial Bias Claims, Investor Says
The Nasdaq Stock Market isn't immune from racial discrimination claims because such claims are "simply too different" from the claims it actually is protected from as a self-regulatory organization, an investor in a minority-led special purpose acquisition company has argued.
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August 12, 2024
Adviser To Pay SEC $6M Over Undisclosed Conflicts
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that investment advisory firm Cadaret Grant & Co. Inc. will pay more than $6 million to settle claims that it failed to make sufficient disclosures to clients regarding its revenue-sharing agreements and conflicts of interests associated with its financial recommendations.
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August 12, 2024
9th Circ. Reboots Manipulation Suit Against Binance.US
The Ninth Circuit on Monday partially reversed the dismissal of a proposed class action alleging that Binance.US artificially deflated the price of HEX cryptocurrency by lowering its ranking on its exchange, finding that the investor who brought the suit had established personal jurisdiction for some of his claims under the Commodity Exchange Act.
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August 12, 2024
SEC Fines OTC Link For Suspicious Activity Reports Failures
Broker-dealer OTC Link LLC on Monday agreed to pay nearly $1.2 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims that the New York-based alternative trading system failed to monitor financial transactions for potential red flags over a three-year period.
Expert Analysis
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Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
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Navigating The Extent Of SEC Cybersecurity Breach Authority
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's broad reading of its authority under Section 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act in the R.R. Donnelley and SolarWinds actions has ramifications for companies dealing with cybersecurity breaches, but it remains to be seen whether the commission's use of the provision will withstand judicial scrutiny, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.
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Best Text Practices In Light Of Terraform's $4.5B Fraud Deal
Text messages were extremely important in a recent civil trial against Terraform Labs, leading to a $4.5 billion settlement, so litigants in securities fraud cases need to have robust mobile data policies that address the content and retention of messages, and the obligations of employees to allow for collection, say Josh Sohn and Alicia Clausen at Crowell & Moring.
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Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.
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Dapper Settlement Offers Rules Of The Road For NFT Issuers
The terms of a $4 million settlement in a class action alleging that Dapper Labs sold its NBA Top Shot Moments as unregistered securities may be a model for third parties that wish to avoid securities liability in connection with offering digital asset non-fungible token collectibles, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
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Navigating The New Rise Of Greenwashing Litigation
As greenwashing lawsuits continue to gain momentum with a shift in focus to carbon-neutrality claims, businesses must exercise caution and ensure transparency in their environmental marketing practices, taking cues from recent legal challenges in the airline industry, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
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.
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How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges
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.
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First-Of-Its-Kind Chancery Ruling Will Aid SPAC Defendants
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.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
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.
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Supreme Court's ALJ Ruling Carries Implications Beyond SEC
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.
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Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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Series
After Chevron: No Deference, No Difference For SEC Or CFTC
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.
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Opinion
Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron
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.