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Securities
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August 29, 2024
IBM Unit's Repurchase Not Blocked By Del. Litigation Privilege
An International Business Machines Corp. affiliate can enforce a stake repurchase option against a former executive suing the company, a Delaware judge ruled Thursday, saying statements he made in legal filings can trigger the repurchase provision in his nondisparagement agreement.
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August 29, 2024
Texas' Anti-ESG Law Is Unconstitutional, Green Biz Org Says
A sustainability-focused business group on Thursday sued Texas state officials in federal court seeking to block a law that restricts state investments with financial firms and businesses that want to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.
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August 29, 2024
Starbucks Overpromised On 'Reinvention' Plan, Investor Says
Coffee chain Starbucks faces a proposed investor class action alleging it misled the markets about prospects for its so-called Triple Shot Reinvention strategy, hurting investors after trading prices for its shares slid when it announced disappointing quarterly results in April 2024.
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August 29, 2024
SEC Says PE Firm Ran $3.3M Real Estate Investment Scam
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a suit in California federal court accusing a private equity firm and its managing partner, who was previously convicted of financial crimes, of fraudulently raising $3.3 million through a Ponzi-like real estate investment scheme.
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August 29, 2024
SEC Slams Crypto Co.'s Bid To Curb Its Enforcement Powers
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has moved to rid itself of a lawsuit that aims to limit its ability to oversee the crypto industry, telling a Texas federal judge that there is no evidence that the agency's staff was even aware of the startup that is suing to head off a non-existent enforcement action.
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August 29, 2024
Ex-SPAC Agrees To Face 'Springing Penalty' In SEC Case
Former blank check company National Energy Services Reunited Corp. has agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission $400,000, with a potential additional penalty of $1.2 million if it doesn't undertake certain remediation efforts, over alleged financial reporting and controls failures stemming from its acquisition of 2 companies.
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August 29, 2024
Schwab's 'Cash Sweep' Paid For TD Ameritrade Buy, Suit Says
The Charles Schwab Corp. has been hit with a proposed class action in California federal court by three customers alleging that the investment bank obtains "outsized benefits" from its cash sweep programs and used a significant amount of the cash to finance its $26 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. several years ago.
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August 29, 2024
Nigerian Fintech Ex-CEO Hit With $32M Fine In SEC Fraud Suit
A New York federal judge has levied a nearly $32 million penalty against a Nigerian businessman whom the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused of fraudulently inflating the value of his food and agriculture technology businesses, while also ordering him and various affiliated businesses to cough up hundreds of millions of dollars in disgorgement and prejudgment interest.
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August 29, 2024
Class Attys Seek Chancery Doc Sanctions In Santander Suit
An attorney for Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. stockholders urged a Delaware vice chancellor Thursday to exercise the court's "common law" document retention enforcer role during arguments for sanctions against the big auto lender's board, controller and parent for deleting messages before a $2.5 billion minority squeeze-out merger.
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August 29, 2024
GAO Suggests IRS Improve Retirement Account Oversight
The Internal Revenue Service needs to beef up its oversight of conflicts of interest between fiduciaries and individual retirement account investors, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
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August 29, 2024
JPMorgan Says Ex-Adviser Poached Clients Worth $13M
JPMorgan Chase has accused a former adviser of attempting to solicit clients for Wells Fargo, an effort JPMorgan alleged has so far been successful in converting 16 clients worth $13 million to its competitor.
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August 29, 2024
Feds Say Ex-BigLaw Atty Can't Shake OneCoin Conviction
Federal prosecutors have told the Second Circuit that former Locke Lord LLP partner Mark S. Scott has "greatly exaggerate[d]" the importance of testimony from a government witness, some of which was later shown to be perjury, in a bid to have his money laundering conviction reversed.
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August 29, 2024
Nasdaq To Pay $22M CFTC Fine Over Incentive Program
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission slapped Nasdaq Futures Inc. with a $22 million fine Thursday based on allegations that the now-shuttered derivatives exchange failed to disclose an incentive program for high-volume traders.
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August 28, 2024
Calif. Assembly OKs 1st-Of-Its-Kind AI Safety Bill
California lawmakers on Wednesday approved a groundbreaking proposal that would set safety and security standards for large artificial intelligence models.
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August 28, 2024
TikTok Moderation Co. Can't Beat Investor Suit Over Exposés
A Florida federal judge ruled Wednesday that TikTok content moderation company Teleperformance must face a pension fund's proposed class action alleging that investors were harmed after investigative reports were published claiming that the company was working its staff into the ground and forcing them to watch harmful content with no support.
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August 28, 2024
SEC Says Repeat Offenders Ran Medical Co. Investment Scam
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a settlement with one of two men it accused of inflating the price of a healthcare company before an initial public offering with a shell company, saying he has violated a trading bar from the agency's previous suit against him.
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August 28, 2024
BofA Units Fined $3M Over Trade Surveillance Compliance
Two Bank of America units have agreed to pay $3 million to settle the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's claims that they did not sufficiently safeguard against potentially manipulative trading by customers.
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August 28, 2024
Capital One Says Merger's Pending Approval Tanks Challenge
Capital One urged a Virginia federal judge to toss or pause a lawsuit challenging the bank's proposed $35 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services, saying the suit's claims are too speculative and contingent on unknown future events since they depend entirely on the acquisition receiving regulatory and government approval.
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August 28, 2024
SEC To Embattled NC Insurance Exec: Show Us The Money
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to force a convicted insurance mogul at the center of an alleged $57 million fraud to tell it what happened to the money he's accused of stealing from the insurance companies he ran, arguing in a North Carolina federal court that his answers thus far don't add up and that he shouldn't be allowed to rely on them at his upcoming trial.
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August 28, 2024
Boston Consulting Group Avoids FCPA Prosecution, Feds Say
The U.S. Department of Justice has declined to prosecute Boston Consulting Group Inc. for former employees' alleged bribery of Angolan officials because of the management consulting firm's self-disclosure of the misconduct, as well as its cooperation, remediation and disgorgement of more than $14.4 million.
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August 28, 2024
Walgreens Brass Hid Pharmacy Division Woes, Suit Says
Walgreens' directors and officers have been hit with a derivative suit by a shareholder who says the company and its executives inflated stock value by publicly expressing confidence in the pharmacy division's growth while hiding its struggles adapting to industry hurdles.
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August 28, 2024
NFT Platform OpenSea Says SEC May Bring Registration Suit
The CEO of nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea said Wednesday that the firm was ready to "stand up and fight" after it received a notice that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was considering an enforcement action claiming that the "creative goods" on its platform are unregistered securities.
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August 28, 2024
Bowl America Board Strikes $2.2M Deal To End Merger Suit
Bowl America board members have agreed to pay nearly $2.2 million to settle a class action that alleged the company's board of directors acted in bad faith when it approved a merger with Bowlero Corp., according to a proposal submitted to a Maryland federal court.
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August 28, 2024
Billionaire Vik Says Deutsche Bank's 'Harassment' Must End
Deutsche Bank AG's Connecticut state court lawsuit against billionaire Alexander Vik and his daughter is a doomed effort to relitigate issues that were already decided in a 2013 case that likewise sprang from the bank's global legal battle to collect a $243 million foreign judgment, the defendants said in seeking an early win.
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August 28, 2024
Conn. Investment Firm Withheld Pay, Commissions, Suit Says
Six former employees of Connecticut investment advisory firm Excel Wealth Management LLC have sued the company and its members in state court seeking hourly wages or commissions they claimed they were never paid, with some alleging they were terminated for speaking out about their compensation.
Expert Analysis
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Breaking Down DOJ's Individual Self-Disclosure Pilot Program
The U.S. Department of Justice’s recently announced pilot program aims to incentivize individuals to voluntarily self-disclose corporate misconduct they were personally involved in, complementing a new whistleblower pilot program for individuals not involved in misconduct as well as the government's broader corporate enforcement approach, say attorneys at Paul Weiss.
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Reverse Veil-Piercing Ruling Will Help Judgment Creditors
A New York federal court’s recent decision in Citibank v. Aralpa Holdings, finding two corporate entities liable for a judgment issued against a Mexican businessman, shows the value of reverse veil piercing as a remedy for judgment creditors to go after sophisticated debtors who squirrel away assets, says Gabe Bluestone at Omni Bridgeway.
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Address Complainants Before They Become Whistleblowers
A New York federal court's dismissal of a whistleblower retaliation claim against HSBC Securities last month indicates that ignored complaints to management combined with financial incentives from regulators create the perfect conditions for a concerned and disgruntled employee to make the jump to federal whistleblower, say attorneys at Cooley.
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Ensuring Nonpublic Info Stays Private Amid SEC Crackdown
Companies and individuals must take steps to ensure material nonpublic information remains confidential while working outside the office, as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission continues to take enforcement actions against those who trade on MNPI and don't comply with new off-channel communications rules in the remote work era, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.
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What Cos. Are Reporting Under New SEC Cybersecurity Rule
Four months after its effective date, 14 companies have made disclosures under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's mandatory cybersecurity incident reporting rule, and some early trends are emerging, including a possible rush to file, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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10 Tips For ESG Disclosure Compliance In Private Funds
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
As regulators increase scrutiny of misleading claims about environmental, social and governance investments, private fund sponsors should consider several practical tips for communicating accurately with potential investors, drafting comprehensive disclosures and establishing internal policies that can keep pace with evolving compliance requirements, says Jonathan Rash at Ropes & Gray.
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Binance Ruling Spotlights Muddled Post-Morrison Landscape
The Second Circuit's recent decision in Williams v. Binance highlights the judiciary's struggle to apply the U.S. Supreme Court's Morrison v. National Australia Bank ruling to digital assets, and illustrates how Morrison's territorial limits on the federal securities laws have become convoluted, say Andrew Rhys Davies and Jessica Lewis at WilmerHale.
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What FERC's Disclosure Demands Mean For Cos., Investors
Two recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission orders reflect the commission's increasingly meticulous approach to reviewing corporate structures in applications for approval of proposed consolidations, acquisitions or changes in control — putting the onus on the regulated community to track and comply with ever-more-burdensome disclosure requirements, say attorneys at Willkie.
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Corp. Transparency Act Could Survive 11th Circ. Several Ways
If the Eleventh Circuit upholds an Alabama federal court’s injunction against the Corporate Transparency Act, the anti-money laundering law could persist as a narrower version that could moot some constitutional challenges, but these remedies would likely generate additional regulatory or statutory ambiguities that would result in further litigation, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.
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Del. Match.com Ruling Maintains Precedent In Time Of Change
Despite speculation that the Delaware Supreme Court could drive away corporations if it lowered the bar for business judgment review in its Match.com stockholder ruling, the court broke its recent run of controversial precedent-busting decisions by upholding, and arguably strengthening, minority stockholder protections against controller coercion, say Renee Zaytsev and Marc Ayala at Boies Schiller.
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Macquarie Ruling Raises The Bar For Securities Fraud Claims
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week in Macquarie Infrastructure v. Moab Partners — holding that a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule does not forbid omissions in company disclosures unless they render other statements false — is a major setback for plaintiffs pursuing securities fraud claims against corporations, say attorneys at Skadden.
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First 10b5-1 Insider Trading Case Raises Compliance Issues
The ongoing case against former Ontrak CEO Terren Peizer is the U.S. Department of Justice's first insider trading prosecution based primarily on the filing of 10b5-1 plans, and has important takeaways for attorneys reviewing corporate policies on the possession of material nonpublic information, say attorneys at Cadwalader.
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Series
Whitewater Kayaking Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Whether it's seeing clients and their issues from a new perspective, or staying nimble in a moment of intense challenge, the lessons learned from whitewater kayaking transcend the rapids of a river and prepare attorneys for the courtroom and beyond, says Matthew Kent at Alston & Bird.
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Del. Lessons For Director-Nominees On Sharing With Activists
The Delaware Chancery Court's recent decision in Icahn Partners v. deSouza finding that a director wasn't permitted to share certain privileged information with the activist stockholders that nominated him shows the need for companies to consider imposing appropriate confidentiality requirements on directors, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.
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This Earth Day, Consider How Your Firm Can Go Greener
As Earth Day approaches, law firms and attorneys should consider adopting more sustainable practices to reduce their carbon footprint — from minimizing single-use plastics to purchasing carbon offsets for air travel — which ultimately can also reduce costs for clients, say M’Lynn Phillips and Lisa Walters at IMS Legal Strategies.