Securities

  • October 25, 2024

    Alibaba Agrees To $433.5M Deal In Nearly 4-Year Investor Suit

    Alibaba Group has agreed to shell out $433.5 million to resolve a proposed class of investors' allegations it made misstatements about its exclusivity practices and the planned $34 billion initial public offering of a fintech affiliate, the Chinese e-commerce company said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday.

  • October 25, 2024

    Crypto Rapidly Transforming IRS Criminal Cases, Agent Says

    Cryptocurrency is altering the size of many criminal cases that federal law enforcement agencies are handling, an Internal Revenue Service criminal investigator told the UCLA Tax Controversy Conference, commenting that over the past three years the agency broke its record for asset seizures three times.

  • October 25, 2024

    Sports Co. Says SEC's $4M Damages Bid Spells Disaster

    A multimillion-dollar securities fraud judgment against two companies linked to a virtual sports trading platform would be disastrous for the already-struggling organizations, their attorney argued before a D.C. federal judge Friday.

  • October 25, 2024

    SEC Wants PE Firm's 'Fishing Expedition' Claims Paused

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has asked a Texas federal judge to pause a real estate-focused private equity fund's suit alleging that the regulator subjected it to an unconstitutional "fishing expedition" outside its regulatory purview.

  • October 25, 2024

    FTX Reaches $228M Deal With Crypto Co. Bybit

    The FTX bankruptcy estate reached a deal worth about $228 million to resolve its lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange Bybit and the firm's investment arm, Mirana Corp., that alleged they unfairly jumped the line to withdraw funds during FTX's meltdown in late 2022 and held the estate's own funds hostage.

  • October 25, 2024

    SEC's Crypto Mining Case Belongs In 10th Circ., Court Hears

    A Utah man accused of defrauding crypto mining investors out of $18 million is hoping for an opportunity to have his case heard before the Tenth Circuit, arguing that the mining equipment is not a security and that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should be forced to drop the suit.

  • October 25, 2024

    Dental Exec Flees Ahead Of Possible 7-Year Fraud Sentence

    An arrest warrant was issued Friday for the former CEO of a dental device company who pled guilty to defrauding investors out of $10.7 million after he did not show up for his sentencing hearing, where Washington federal prosecutors were asking for seven years in prison.

  • October 25, 2024

    Va. Man Gets 7½ Years For $15M Gov't Contract Investor Scam

    A Virginia man was sentenced Friday to over seven years in prison for defrauding dozens of investors out of $15 million by misleading them into believing that his company had millions of dollars in contracts with federal and state government agencies.

  • October 25, 2024

    Judge Won't Rethink $750K For P&G Worker's Ex-Girlfriend

    A Pennsylvania judge won't reconsider her decision to let the estranged ex-girlfriend of a deceased Procter & Gamble employee claim more than $754,000 he had in an investment account, ruling that the employee's estate hadn't cited any new evidence or changes in law to overcome the beneficiary form he'd left untouched since the late 1980s.

  • October 25, 2024

    9th Circ. Dubious Of Tesla Investors' Appeal Of $12B Trial Loss

    Ninth Circuit judges appeared skeptical Friday of Tesla investors' argument that an erroneous trial instruction improperly led a jury to reject their $12 billion claim over Elon Musk's 2018 tweets that he had "funding secured" to take the electric car giant private.

  • October 25, 2024

    Hawkins Delafield Career Atty Moves To Nixon Peabody In SF

    Nixon Peabody LLP hired a Hawkins Delafield & Wood LLP partner who has spent his entire legal career with that firm working on public finance tax matters and a range of other tax-related matters, the firm has announced.

  • October 25, 2024

    Judge Chides Bid To Swap Credit Suisse Suit's Lead Plaintiff

    A New York federal judge has rejected an investor's bid to supersede the current lead plaintiff in a securities fraud suit over Credit Suisse's 2023 collapse, saying the petitioning investor had "jumped at the opportunity to sell out his fellow class members" with the replacement motion and criticizing his lawyer too.

  • October 25, 2024

    MVP: Robbins Geller's Shawn Williams And Mark Solomon

    Shawn Williams and Mark Solomon, managing partners at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, represented a British pension fund in a shareholder lawsuit against one of the deepest-pocketed companies in the world, Apple Inc. After years of litigation, Apple agreed in March to settle the case for $490 million, an outcome that landed both Solomon and Williams on the list of the 2024 Law360 Securities MVPs.

  • October 24, 2024

    Truth Social SPAC Founder Wants $1M Award For Payout Suit

    The investment sponsor of the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that took former President Donald Trump's Truth Social media company public has asked for a $1 million fee award for driving the Delaware Chancery Court litigation over the Trump camp's attempts to slash a SPAC deal stock conversion ratio that would have cost some preferred investors millions.

  • October 24, 2024

    FINRA Says Its Regs Apply To Metaverse, Seeks Comments

    Broker-dealers and other firms that are weighing incorporating the metaverse into their business operations should be mindful of how Financial Industry Regulatory Authority rules apply to such activities and reach out with any concerns about regulatory ambiguities, the regulator said Thursday.

  • October 24, 2024

    SEC Says Broker Still Owes $3.5M Over Pre-IPO Stock Scheme

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wants a Manhattan federal court to enforce its nearly $3.5 million administrative order against an unregistered broker-dealer and its managing member, who allegedly made over $65 million selling interests in a portfolio of companies that hadn't yet gone public.

  • October 24, 2024

    No Tax Break For Bad Debt Investors, Wash. Justices Say

    The Washington State Supreme Court said Thursday that a group of funds that buy and sell distressed credit card debt can't claim a state business tax deduction on investment income because those investments were not incidental to their main business purpose.

  • October 24, 2024

    CAT Is 'Out Of The Bag': Judge Won't Block SEC Data Tool

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission can continue to monitor markets through a surveillance tool known as the consolidated audit trail while it fights a class action lawsuit challenging the tool's existence, with a Texas federal judge saying Thursday that enjoining data collection now would cause chaos and disruption.

  • October 24, 2024

    Chancery Won't Block Dura Medic Merger Insurance Claims

    Dura Medic, a private equity-controlled medical equipment supplier, and its directors and officers won their bid Thursday in Delaware's Court of Chancery to beat back, for now, a request for a temporary restraining order blocking a settlement that could put a $5 million directors and officers insurance policy beyond the reach of the previous owners' damage claims.

  • October 24, 2024

    Feds Ask To Adjourn Trial For Crypto Maven After He Flees

    Prosecutors asked a Brooklyn federal judge to push back the trial date for a German cryptocurrency firm founder who they said tampered with his ankle monitor and absconded while out on bail on investor fraud charges.

  • October 24, 2024

    FINRA Fines Broker Over Securities Lending Algorithm Issues

    Interactive Brokers LLC has agreed to a $475,000 fine from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to resolve alleged issues with its securities lending algorithm that resulted in the firm returning borrowed shares to customers when it should not have and for allegedly allowing an unregistered person to work on the algorithm's software development.

  • October 24, 2024

    Robbins Geller Tapped To Lead Lincoln National Investor Suit

    Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP will lead an investor suit against insurance holding company Lincoln National in Pennsylvania federal court alleging that it misled investors about its failing variable life insurance product.

  • October 24, 2024

    Southwest Shakes Up Boardroom In Deal With Activist Elliott

    Southwest Airlines on Thursday announced a board shake-up, marking the latest of the airline's moves as part of its "transformational" plan amid pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management.

  • October 24, 2024

    ConvergeOne Can't Ax Snubbed Creditors' Ch. 11 Plan Appeal

    A Texas federal judge said he wouldn't toss an appeal by a group of secured creditors who say they were improperly iced out of a new equity offering pool for ConvergeOne, writing that the group's challenge wouldn't unravel the reorganized information technology services company's confirmed Chapter 11 plan or harm third parties.

  • October 24, 2024

    Feds Want Leniency For Key Witness At Bankman-Fried Trial

    Prosecutors asked a Manhattan federal judge for leniency when sentencing a former FTX executive who they said provided "substantial" assistance and testimony in the successful prosecution of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange's founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Expert Analysis

  • How The 2025 Tax Policy Debate Will Affect The Energy Sector

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    Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming U.S. election, 2025 will bring a major tax policy debate that could affect the energy sector more than any other part of the economy — so stakeholders who could be affected should be engaging now to make sure they understand the stakes, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

  • Recent Securities Cases Highlight Risks In AI Disclosures

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    Increasing public disclosure about the use and risks of artificial intelligence, and related litigation asserting that such disclosures are false or misleading, suggest that issuers need to exercise great care with respect to how they describe the benefits of AI, say Richard Zelichov and Danny Tobey at DLA Piper.

  • 3rd Circ. Hertz Ruling Highlights Flawed Bankruptcy Theory

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    The Third Circuit, in its recent Hertz bankruptcy decision, became the latest appeals court to hold that noteholders were entitled to interest before shareholders under the absolute priority rule, but risked going astray by invoking the flawed theory of code impairment, say Matthew McGill and David Casazza at Gibson Dunn.

  • Opinion

    This Election, We Need To Talk About Court Process

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    In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has markedly transformed judicial processes — from summary judgment standards to notice pleadings — which has, in turn, affected individuals’ substantive rights, and we need to consider how the upcoming presidential election may continue this pattern, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Breaking Down CFTC's Novel Theory Driving Uniswap Action

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    The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recent enforcement action against Uniswap concerning digital asset liquidity appears to be a unilateral attempt to expand its regulatory authority in the absence of official congressional approval, putting forth a novel theory of liability that will likely be tested through litigation, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Series

    Playing Diplomacy Makes Us Better Lawyers

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    Similar to the practice of law, the rules of Diplomacy — a strategic board game set in pre-World War I Europe — are neither concise nor without ambiguity, and weekly gameplay with our colleagues has revealed the game's practical applications to our work as attorneys, say Jason Osborn and Ben Bevilacqua at Winston & Strawn.

  • Applying High Court's Domestic Corruption Rulings To FCPA

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the domestic corruption statutes in three decisions over the past year and a half, it’s worth evaluating whether these rulings may have an impact on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement, and if attorneys can use the court’s reasoning in international bribery cases, says James Koukios at MoFo.

  • Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys

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    Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.

  • Series

    Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q3

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    In the third quarter of the year, California continued to be at the forefront of banking regulation as it enacted legislation on unfair banking practices and junk fees, and the state Department of Financial Protection and Innovation notably initiated enforcement actions focused on crypto-assets and student loan debt relief, say Stuart Richter and Eric Hail at Katten.

  • John Deere Penalty Shows Importance Of M&A Due Diligence

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent $10 million penalty against John Deere underscores the risks of not conducting robust preacquisition due diligence and not effectively integrating a new subsidiary into the existing compliance framework, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Enviro Policy Trends That Will Continue Beyond The Election

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    Come October in a presidential election year, the policy world feels like a winner-take-all scenario, with the outcome of the vote determining how or even whether we are regulated — but there are several key ongoing trends that will continue to drive environmental regulation regardless of the election results, say J. Michael Showalter and Samuel Rasche at ArentFox Schiff.

  • 2 High Court Securities Cases Could Clarify Pleading Rules

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    In granting certiorari in a pair of securities fraud cases against Facebook and Nvidia, respectively, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled its intention to align interpretations of the heightened pleading standard under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act amid its uneven application among the circuit courts, say attorneys at V&E.

  • Series

    Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.

  • Del. Dispatch: Cautionary Tales Of 2 Earnout Effort Breaches

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    The Delaware Court of Chancery's tendency to interpret earnout provisions precisely as written, highlighted in two September rulings that found buyers breached their shareholder obligations when they failed to make reasonable efforts to hit certain product development milestones, demonstrates the paramount importance of precisely wording these agreements, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • Series

    A Day In The In-House Life: Best Egg CLO Talks Power Of Prep

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    On a typical Monday in her life, Best Egg Chief Legal Officer Amy Thoreson Long chronicles a remote workday in which she makes time for everything from getting ahead on regulatory issues and researching recent Supreme Court decisions to dog walks and podcast breaks.

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