Securities

  • December 10, 2024

    Robinhood Seeks Arb. For Remaining Meme Stock MDL Suits

    Stock trading platform Robinhood urged a Florida federal court to send to arbitration the seven remaining individual suits brought against it as part of a multidistrict litigation over the platform's decision to freeze trading in certain so-called meme stocks amid a social-media fueled run on shares of those issuers.

  • December 10, 2024

    SEC Says Ex-Rep Defrauded Investors With Short-Term Bets

    A former registered representative of broker-dealer Western International Securities Inc. has agreed to pay over $2.1 million to end U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations he orchestrated a scheme to defraud retail clients by recommending costly investment strategies, and then covered up their "substantial" losses with phony financial statements.

  • December 10, 2024

    SEC Outlines Municipal Adviser Exam Process

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Examinations has issued a risk alert outlining its process for selecting municipal advisers to examine, how advisers can prepare for exams, and the types of information examiners may request.

  • December 10, 2024

    Chancery Awards Ajamie $13M In Cell Partnership Fight

    Boutique law firm Ajamie LLP has won a Delaware Court of Chancery ruling that clients in a more-than decade-long multi-site battle over dozens of AT&T cellphone partnerships owe Ajamie about $13 million in legal fees despite a court finding that a formal fee-sharing agreement is unenforceable.

  • December 10, 2024

    Pastor Targeted Churchgoers In $6M Crypto Fraud, CFTC Says

    The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Tuesday that it has sued a Washington state pastor in federal court for allegedly targeting Spanish-speaking individuals, including members of his congregation, with a cryptocurrency multilevel marketing scheme worth at least $5.9 million. 

  • December 10, 2024

    4th Circ. Casts Doubt On Broker's FINRA Challenge

    A Fourth Circuit panel wondered Tuesday whether it was too soon to hear one North Carolina broker's constitutional challenge against the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, with the circuit judges pointing out that FINRA's case against the broker was not yet over.

  • December 10, 2024

    SEC Says Xtreme Fighting CEO And GC Defrauded Investors

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Xtreme Fighting Championships and CEO Steven Smith of defrauding investors by selling millions of dollars of stock in the martial arts organization without disclosing the involvement of Smith or its criminally charged general counsel, according to a Florida federal lawsuit.

  • December 10, 2024

    Crypto Groups Rally Against Reappointing SEC's Crenshaw

    Cryptocurrency industry groups are pushing back on a potential second term for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw with an online ad campaign and letters to lawmakers ahead of a Senate Banking Committee vote Wednesday on the Democrat's confirmation.

  • December 10, 2024

    Soft Landing For Pilot As Billionaire's Insider Case Wraps

    A pilot who admitted to dodging taxes on $500,000 in income after he was accused of taking stock tips from Joe Lewis, his billionaire boss, avoided prison on Tuesday at a sentencing that closed a high-profile insider trading prosecution.

  • December 09, 2024

    Trump Media Investors Urge Stay Denial In Del. Suit

    Investors in Donald Trump's social media website urged a Delaware Chancery Court to deny a temporary stay brought by the president-elect in order to let Florida litigation play out first, saying presidential immunity doesn't extend to unofficial acts, and the lawsuit can proceed against Trump's affiliates.

  • December 09, 2024

    Akin Gump 'Totally Messed Up' With Texts, Vaxart Judge Says

    A California federal judge asked by Vaxart investors to impose sanctions over a hedge fund's deleted text messages in a case claiming Vaxart inflated its stock price with deceptive headlines about a COVID-19 vaccine said Monday that the fund's lawyers at Akin Gump "totally, totally messed up."

  • December 09, 2024

    Blockchain Co. IP Fight With Investment Firm Teed Up For Trial

    A California federal judge has said a jury should decide whether the investment firm Franklin Templeton misappropriated trade secrets of Blockchain Innovation LLC and breached its fiduciary duty and contract with the firm when it shut down a digital asset startup that Blockchain later acquired.

  • December 09, 2024

    Morgan Stanley Pays SEC $15M Over Theft By Ex-Reps

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced a $15 million penalty against a Morgan Stanley subsidiary Monday, saying the company failed to put in place procedures that may have earlier caught four former employees who spent years stealing from clients.

  • December 09, 2024

    Satellite Co. Sued In Del. For Docs After $450M Merger

    Two stockholders of satellite venture Terran Orbital Corp. sued the business in Delaware's Court of Chancery Friday for access to company records, linking the demand to their investigation of events leading up to the company's $450 million, 25-cents-per-share sale to Lockheed Martin in October.

  • December 09, 2024

    Feds Says Colo. Man's Investing Scheme Fleeced Pro Athletes

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday filed a civil lawsuit accusing a Colorado man of swindling investors, including unidentified professional athletes, out of more than a million dollars.

  • December 09, 2024

    MIT Grads Say $25M Crypto Fraud Charges Not Rooted In Law

    The two Massachusetts Institute of Technology-educated brothers accused of a $25 million crypto heist have told a New York federal judge that the indictment against them is "far removed from the heartland of wire fraud" since their novel trades can't be considered misrepresentations and that they had no notice their activity would be considered unlawful.

  • December 09, 2024

    SocGen Unit To Pay FINRA $950K Over Fingerprinting Lapses

    A U.S.-based unit of French financial services company Societe Generale will pay a $950,000 fine to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to settle the self-regulatory organization's claims that the firm failed to fingerprint roughly 2,000 current and former employees at certain affiliates as required by law.

  • December 09, 2024

    Facebook Execs Deny Email Breach Harm In Del. Hearing

    Two former Facebook directors turned to "chutzpah" in answering a stockholder class call for sanctions against them for deleting uncounted emails regarding privacy violations and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a stockholder attorney told a Delaware vice chancellor on Monday.

  • December 09, 2024

    EV Carmaker Lucid Wants To Shed More Of Inflated Biz Suit

    Electric carmaker Lucid Group has asked a California federal judge to toss most of the latest version of a proposed investor class action alleging its production forecasts were misleading, arguing that parts of the suit that remained intact after a recent dismissal order involved statements taken out of context.

  • December 09, 2024

    SEC's Trading And Markets Director Zhu To Leave Agency

    Haoxiang Zhu is stepping down as head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Trading and Markets, the agency announced Monday, leaving the group that oversees orderliness of U.S. markets as leadership continues to change at regulatory bodies following President-elect Donald Trump's election victory.

  • December 09, 2024

    Feds Seek 2-Year Sentence In Landmark Crypto Tax Case

    The first person ever criminally charged for failing to report gains from the sale of cryptocurrency by filing false returns should be sentenced to more than two years in prison after he admitted underreporting $4 million in bitcoin proceeds, prosecutors told a Texas federal court.

  • December 06, 2024

    SEC Says Market Forecaster Ran Biotech Pump-And-Dump

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued a subscription-based investment advice company and its owner, accusing them of making nearly $1.4 million in a pump-and-dump scheme involving a purported drugmaker.

  • December 06, 2024

    Allianz Exec Avoids Prison For $7B Investor Fraud

    A New York federal judge on Friday declined to sentence a former portfolio manager for Allianz SE's U.S. unit to any time in prison for lying to investors about the riskiness of a group of private investment funds that lost over $7 billion when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

  • December 06, 2024

    Life Insurance Investments Aren't Securities, 9th Circ. Told

    Agents who sold interests in life insurance policies for Pacific West Capital Group — which struck a $64 million SEC deal to end investment fraud claims — urged the Ninth Circuit on Friday to reverse an order requiring them to pay back some of their commissions, saying the deals weren't investment contracts.

  • December 06, 2024

    How Paul Atkins' Last SEC Term Might Shape Agency's Future

    President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission next year is no stranger to the agency, and Paul Atkins' past speeches, statements and actions as a commissioner may offer a road map for how he would lead the agency in areas such as private funds, shareholder activism and multibillion-dollar enforcement sweeps.

Expert Analysis

  • The Bar Needs More Clarity On The Discovery Objection Rule

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    Almost 10 years after Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 was amended, attorneys still seem confused about what they should include in objections to discovery requests, and until the rules committee provides additional clarity, practitioners must beware the steep costs of noncompliance, says Tristan Ellis at Shanies Law Office.

  • The AI Consumer Class Action Threat Is Not A Hallucination

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    As regulators scrutinize whether businesses can deliver on claims about their artificial intelligence products and services, the industry faces a wave of consumer fraud class actions — but AI companies can protect themselves by prioritizing fundamental best practices that are often overlooked, say Ronald Levine at Herrick Feinstein and Richard Torrenzano at the Torrenzano Group.

  • What's Next For The CFTC After The Election

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    While much of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's enforcement actions in line with its traditional priorities will continue as usual in the near term, postelection leadership changes at the CFTC and new congressional priorities may alter the commission's regulatory framework in 2025 and beyond — particularly its oversight of crypto, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • Del. Dispatch: Clarifying Charter Amendment Vote Obligations

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    The Delaware Court of Chancery recently held in Gunderson v. The Trade Desk that only a majority stockholder vote is needed to approve a company's proposed reincorporation from Delaware to Nevada through a corporate conversion, which bodes well for other companies also considering leaving the First State, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • What's Still Up In The Air After Ruling On Calif. Climate Laws

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    A California federal court's recent ruling on challenges to California's sweeping climate disclosure laws resolved some issues, but allows litigation over the constitutionality of the laws to continue, and leaves many important questions on what entities will need to do to comply with the laws unanswered, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.

  • Series

    Being A Navy Reservist Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Serving this country in uniform has not only been one of the greatest honors of my life, but it has also provided me with opportunities to broaden my legal acumen and interpersonal skills in ways that have indelibly contributed to my civilian practice, says Phillip Smith at Weinberg Wheeler.

  • Navigating DOJ's Patchwork Whistleblower Regime

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    In the past few months, the U.S. Department of Justice and several individual U.S. attorney’s offices have issued different pilot programs aimed at incentivizing individuals to blow the whistle on misconduct, but this piecemeal approach may create confusion and suboptimal outcomes, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

  • So You Want To Move Your Law Practice To Canada, Eh?

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    Google searches for how to move to Canada have surged in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, and if you’re an attorney considering a move to the Great White North, you’ll need to understand how the practice of law differs across the border, says David Postel at Henein Hutchison.

  • A Look At Similarities Between SOX And SEC's Cyber Rule

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    Just as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act paved the way for greater transparency and accountability in financial reporting, the SEC's cybersecurity rule is doing much the same for cybersecurity, ensuring that companies are resilient in the face of growing cyber threats, says Padraic O'Reilly at CyberSaint.

  • Trump Rollback Of Biden Enviro Policies: What To Expect

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    Donald Trump's upcoming second presidential term will usher significant shifts in U.S. environmental and natural resource law and policy — and while the Biden administration is racing to secure its legacy, the incoming Trump administration is making plans to dramatically roll back most, if not all, of Biden's environmental initiatives, say attorneys at Beveridge & Diamond.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: November Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses six federal court decisions that touch on Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and when individual inquiries are needed to prove economic loss.

  • 5 Areas Congress May Investigate After GOP Election Wins

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    With Republicans poised to take control of Congress in addition to the executive branch next year, private companies can expect an unprecedented uptick in congressional investigations focused on five key areas, including cryptocurrency and healthcare, say attorneys at Cahill Gordon.

  • Trump's 2nd Term May Be A Boost To Banking Industry

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    President-elect Donald Trump's personnel appointments could be instrumental in reshaping the financial regulatory landscape during his second administration, likely allowing for greater merger activity and halting or undoing some of the Biden administration's more restrictive financial services policies, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Why K-Cup Claims Landed Keurig In Hot Water With SEC

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent settlement with Keurig Dr. Pepper for making incomplete statements regarding the recyclability of K-cup pods highlights the importance of comprehensive corporate disclosures, particularly with respect to ESG matters, say attorneys at BCLP.

  • Legislation Most Likely To Pass In Lame Duck Session

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    As Congress begins its five-week post-election lame duck session, attorneys at Greenberg Traurig break down the legislative priorities and which proposals can be expected to pass.

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