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White Collar
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February 27, 2025
Crypto Fugitives Should Pay SEC $46M, Judge Recommends
A cryptocurrency mining company and its founders, who fled to Brazil after the SEC launched an investigation, should be on the hook for more than $46 million in combined payments to harmed investors, along with interest and penalties, a magistrate judge has recommended.
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February 27, 2025
SEC Says Meme Coins Are Not Securities
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff declared Thursday that so-called meme coins do not fall under the agency's jurisdiction and that purchasers of the coins should not expect to be protected by federal securities laws.
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February 27, 2025
Alsup Halts 'Illegal' Firings Of Probationary Federal Workers
U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Thursday temporarily blocked the mass firings of probationary federal employees ordered by President Donald Trump's administration, determining that the Office of Personnel Management illegally directed government agencies to terminate the probationary employees without authority to do so from Congress.
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February 27, 2025
SEC Ends Coinbase Case As Uyeda Pledges To 'Rectify' Policy
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed Thursday that it will walk away from its suit against cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to clear the way for its newly created Crypto Task Force to develop digital asset policy "in a more transparent manner."
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February 27, 2025
Family Denies Role In $81M Son-Of-Boss Tax Scheme
The government failed to prove that former shareholders of a family holding company knew the buyer of their company stock was shorting the IRS nearly $81 million and that they should be on the hook for the taxes, family members told a New York federal court Thursday.
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February 27, 2025
Ex-Trump Atty Powell's Mich. Misconduct Hearing Set For May
The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board on Thursday announced the date for a misconduct hearing for Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and other attorneys who were allegedly involved in a legal challenge to Michigan's 2020 presidential election results and supporting Donald Trump's election fraud theories.
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February 27, 2025
Convicted COVID Aid Fraudster Gets 11 Years For $7.6M Plot
A man convicted of conspiring to bilk about $7.6 million from the U.S. Small Business Administration through COVID-19 relief applications submitted in other people's names has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, New York federal prosecutors said Thursday.
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February 27, 2025
NC Woman Admits To Role In $5M Student Loan Fraud
A North Carolina woman has admitted she conspired to commit wire fraud as part of a more than $5 million theft from the federal student loan aid program, a fraud that the U.S. Department of Justice said she organized with more than 70 "straw students."
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February 27, 2025
Wis. Tribe Says It Won't Block, Ticket During Road Dispute
A Wisconsin tribe embroiled in an ongoing dispute with the town of Lac du Flambeau over four tribal roads says it will not block their entrances or ticket anyone for using them as long as the litigation continues.
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February 27, 2025
Lead Testing Co. Director To Admit False Statements
A former quality assurance director for Magellan Diagnostics will plead guilty to making misleading statements to the government about a malfunction in a device that measures lead levels in blood, according to filings in Massachusetts federal court Thursday.
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February 27, 2025
DOJ Says It Will No Longer Defend DEA Admin Judges
The U.S. Department of Justice told a Rhode Island federal judge Thursday it would no longer defend the federal policy that protects administrative law judges from removal in a lawsuit challenging the Drug Enforcement Administration's internal proceedings.
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February 27, 2025
Magnet Co. Execs To Plead Guilty For Emailing Info To China
Two magnetics manufacturing company executives have agreed to enter a plea of guilty for their role in emailing schematics from U.S. Department of Defense contractors to Chinese companies and will face three years behind bars.
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February 27, 2025
Winklevoss Twins Say SEC Crypto Probe Over, Attys Must Go
The founders of crypto exchange Gemini are calling on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to fire and publicly call out staff members who worked on crypto enforcement cases under the Biden administration as they announced that the agency has dropped its investigation into the company.
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February 27, 2025
Judge Won't Force Victim's Atty's Reports In Sex Assault Case
A Florida state judge on Thursday denied a request by three men, including a real estate broker, facing sexual assault charges to force discovery of reports by the victim's attorney at Morgan & Morgan PA.
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February 27, 2025
Cognizant Execs' Trial Could Test Force Of FCPA Pause
The government's decision to proceed with a trial of two former Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. executives despite the Trump administration's retreat from Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement adds a layer of intrigue to a legal saga that has already captivated the white collar bar given the rarity of such cases ever reaching juries.
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February 27, 2025
Insurer's Bid To Dodge $1.4M Bank Scam Suit Premature
An insurer cannot yet escape an attorney's demand for coverage in an alleged scheme to steal $1.4 million from a New Jersey development company, a Connecticut federal judge ruled, saying the carrier didn't follow court procedures before it moved to end the case.
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February 27, 2025
Goldstein Urges Judge To Lift Device Monitoring Requirement
U.S. Supreme Court advocate and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein asked a Maryland federal judge Thursday to nix a condition of his pretrial release that requires him to have monitoring equipment installed on his electronic devices.
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February 27, 2025
Trump Urges Ga. Justices To Leave Election Charges Nixed
President Donald Trump has urged the Georgia Supreme Court to uphold a state appellate decision that affirmed the dismissal of six counts in the state's election interference case.
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February 27, 2025
How Adams' Latest Move Might Checkmate The DOJ
New York City Mayor Eric Adams' push to permanently dismiss his federal corruption case is a clever legal strategy that appears to have backed the government into a corner, experts say.
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February 27, 2025
Deputy AG And Antitrust Nominations Head To Full Senate
The Senate Judiciary Committee sent the nominations of Todd Blanche, for deputy attorney general, and Gail Slater, for assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, to the full Senate on Thursday, the latter of whom received bipartisan support.
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February 27, 2025
Lenders Can't Claim Ex-Mylan VP's $4M Insider Trade Penalty
Lenders who said they were owed money by a former Mylan vice president can't call dibs on any of the $4.3 million he was ordered to forfeit as part of his guilty plea to insider trading since they hadn't shown that they had a better claim to the money than the defendant or the government, a Pennsylvania federal judge has ruled.
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February 26, 2025
SEC Wants To Pause Fraud Suit Against Tron Founder
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday asked a New York federal court to pause its fraud suit against the founder of blockchain network Tron Foundation, joining the growing list of cryptocurrency cases being abandoned or sidelined under the new Trump administration.
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February 26, 2025
Bank Directors Back Ex-Rabobank Exec's High Court Bid
A bank director advocacy group has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a former Rabobank compliance chief's challenge against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, arguing the agency engages in a practice of "regulation-by-dismissal" to the detriment of the banking industry.
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February 26, 2025
Ill. Tax Pro Gets 5½ Years For $1.1M IRS Payment Scheme
A suburban Chicago tax professional who admitted he made $1.1 million by lying to clients about paying their tax liabilities and is already serving six years for carrying out a separate investment scheme must serve an additional 5½ years in prison for his conduct, an Illinois federal judge said Wednesday.
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February 26, 2025
Trump Orders Fed Agencies To Plan For Large Layoffs
The White House is telling federal agencies to submit plans for "large-scale" layoffs by mid-March, accusing them of siphoning funding for "unproductive and unnecessary programs" and "not producing results for the American public."
Expert Analysis
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Key Rulings On Sentencing Guidelines After Loper Bright
The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo raised questions as to when and whether courts should defer to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines' commentary in disputes over the guidelines' meaning — but some recent appellate court rulings provide insights for defense counsel in this area, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.
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Data Privacy Landscape After Mass. Justices' Wiretap Ruling
In Vita v. New England Baptist Hospital, Massachusetts’ highest court recently ruled that the state’s wiretap law doesn’t prohibit all tracking of website user activity, but major financial and reputational risks remain for businesses that aren't transparent about customer’s web data, says Seth Berman at Nutter.
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Compliance Lessons From Raytheon's FCPA Settlement
A recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act action involving aerospace and defense company Raytheon underscores the importance of risk management related to retaining and overseeing third parties — especially in higher-risk jurisdictions — and the promotion of a companywide culture of compliance, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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Opinion
1 Year After Rule 702 Changes, Courts Have Made Progress
In the year since amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence went into effect, many federal judges have applied the new expert witness standard correctly, excluding unreliable testimony from their courts — but now state courts need to update their own rules accordingly, says Lee Mickus at Evans Fears.
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Gov't Scrutiny Of Workplace Chat Apps Set To Keep Growing
The incoming Trump administration and Republican majorities in Congress are poised to open numerous investigations that include increasing demands for entities to produce communications from workplace chat apps, so companies must evaluate their usage and retention policies, say attorneys at Orrick.
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Using Contracts As Evidence Of Trade Secret Protection
Recent federal and U.S. International Trade Commission decisions demonstrate an interesting trend of judges recognizing that contracts and confidentiality provisions can serve as important evidence of the reasonable secrecy measures companies must take to prove the existence of protected trade secrets, say attorneys at Finnegan.
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An Underutilized Tool To Dismiss Meritless Claims In Texas
In Texas, special appearances provide a useful but often overlooked tool for out-of-state defendants to escape meritless claims early in litigation, thus limiting discovery and creating a pathway for immediate appellate review, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.
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Top 10 Whistleblowing And Retaliation Events Of 2024
From a Florida federal court’s ruling that the False Claims Act’s qui tam provision is unconstitutional to a record-breaking number of whistleblower tips filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, employers saw significant developments in the federal and state whistleblower landscapes this year, say attorneys at Proskauer.
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When US Privilege Law Applies To Docs Made Outside The US
As globalization manifests itself in disputes over foreign-created documents, a California federal court’s recent trademark decision illustrates nuances of both U.S. privilege frameworks and foreign evidentiary protections that attorneys must increasingly bear in mind, say attorneys at Hunton.
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Changes To Expect From SEC Under Trump Nominee
President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Paul Atkins for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chair will likely lead to significant shifts in the Division of Enforcement's priorities, likely focused on protecting retail investors and the stability of the capital markets, say attorneys at Morrison Foerster.
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Executive Orders That Could Affect Financial Services In 2025
The incoming Trump administration is likely to quickly revive or update a number of prior executive orders, and possibly issue new ones, that could affect financial services by emphasizing market discipline rather than regulatory initiatives to drive change in the industry, say attorneys at Davis Wright.
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What To Know About FinCEN's Deepfake Warning
A recent alert from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network warns about the increased use of deepfake media to target financial institutions and their customers, showing that what seems like futuristic technology is a current threat that requires diligent controls and awareness of red flags, say attorneys at Davis Wright.
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'Minimal Participant' Bar Is Tough To Clear For Whistleblowers
Under the U.S. Department of Justice’s corporate whistleblower pilot program, would-be whistleblowers will find it tough to show that they only minimally participated in criminal misconduct while still providing material information, but sentencing precedent shows how they might prove their eligibility for an award, say attorneys at MoloLamken.
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Impact Of Corporate Transparency Act Ambiguity On Banks
Even though banks generally needn't file beneficial ownership information reports, financial institutions must continue to monitor the status of the Corporate Transparency Act and understand its requirements in case the nationwide injunction that was issued against the CTA earlier this month is overturned, say attorneys at Armstrong Teasdale.
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A Look At SEC, CFTC's Record Year For Whistleblower Awards
Another banner year shows that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission have developed the gold standard for whistleblower award programs, but a CFTC funding crisis threatens to derail that program's success, say Andrew Feller and Geoff Schweller at Kohn Kohn.