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Capital Markets
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September 23, 2024
Natural Gas Co. Must Pay $6.8M To Ex-Trader In Bonus Fight
A Colorado state judge has entered a $6.8 million judgment against a natural gas marketing company for its failure to pay an ex-trading director a bonus on lucrative trades he made during a 2021 winter storm, a sum that includes more than $2.5 million in penalties for the company's intentional violation of a state wage law.
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September 23, 2024
Davis Polk Vows Ex-Clerk Won't Touch Crypto Merger Suit
Local counsel for Galaxy Digital Holdings Inc. has told a Delaware vice chancellor that Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP will ensure that an incoming associate who clerked for the state's Supreme Court won't share information with attorneys defending the digital assets company in a merger suit that the state's highest court revived in May.
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September 23, 2024
Shkreli Told To Provide More Info On Wu-Tang Album Copies
A Brooklyn federal judge on Monday ordered Martin Shkreli to update the court on how many tracks he copied from a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album after the cryptocurrency group that now owns the work argued Shkreli could be holding out on surrendering all his copies amid the parties' legal battle.
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September 23, 2024
Latham-Led Aerospace Giant StandardAero Preps $1B IPO
Private equity-backed aerospace services provider StandardAero Inc. launched plans on Monday for an estimated $1 billion initial public offering, represented by Latham & Watkins LLP and underwriters' counsel Milbank LLP, potentially marking one of the year's largest IPOs.
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September 23, 2024
Autism Played Role In Bankman-Fried Case, 2nd Circ. Told
A group of experts on neurodiversity told the Second Circuit that Sam Bankman-Fried, who has said he has autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, may have been hurt at trial by a "cognitive and communication style" that at times frustrated the trial judge.
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September 23, 2024
Ex-Comtech CEOs Push For New Board, Strategic Changes
Two former CEOs of Comtech Telecommunications Corp. are calling for a new board at the global technology company and are pushing the business to consider strategic options, including a potential sale of its public safety business, while noting that one of the CEOs had even offered to re-take the helm at the company without cash compensation.
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September 23, 2024
Tempur Sealy Sets Divestiture Plan Ahead Of FTC Court Battle
Tempur Sealy International Inc. said Monday that it plans to sell 176 stores and seven distribution centers to Mattress Warehouse if it is able to close its planned $4 billion purchase of Mattress Firm Group Inc., in an effort to appease the Federal Trade Commission in its continued efforts to block the deal.
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September 23, 2024
German Biotech Biz Aims For €132.7M Valuation In IPO
German biotech company Pentixapharm said Monday that it is set to launch an initial public offering valued at approximately €23.4 million ($26 million) on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Tuesday at a valuation of up to €132.7 million.
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September 23, 2024
Springer Nature Aims For €4.7B Valuation In German IPO
German-British journal publisher Springer Nature said Monday that it is shooting for a €4.7 billion ($5.2 billion) valuation for its forthcoming initial public offering in Frankfurt.
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September 20, 2024
3rd Circ. CFPB Ruling Threatens Securitization, Justices Told
Two major trade groups for the securities industry have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Third Circuit decision allowing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to exercise enforcement authority over a collection of student loan securitization trusts, slamming the ruling as wrong and dangerous.
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September 20, 2024
EV Battery Co. Hit With $207M Default Loss For Lack Of Attys
Shareholders of electrical vehicle battery maker Romeo Power Inc. have secured a $206.8 million default win against the company after it failed to retain new counsel in a proposed class action alleging it concealed its acute shortage of high-quality battery cells before going public via a merger with a blank check company.
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September 20, 2024
SEC To Seek Sanctions For Musk Deposition 'Gamesmanship'
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission plans to seek sanctions against Elon Musk for not showing up to a scheduled deposition over his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and instead flying to Florida to oversee a SpaceX launch, telling a California federal judge Friday that his excuse "smacks of gamesmanship."
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September 20, 2024
Judge Won't Toss Fraud Suit Against Crypto-Forex Co. Execs
A Florida judge decided that the CEO and a founding shareholder of purported foreign exchange currency broker FxWinning Ltd. have sufficient ties to Florida to keep them among the defendants of a suit alleging the business and its operators perpetrated a multimillion-dollar fraud.
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September 20, 2024
NFT Buyers Bring Securities Suit Against Crypto Co. OpenSea
Two Florida users of OpenSea hit the nonfungible token marketplace with a proposed securities class action claiming the assets the users bought on the platform are unregistered investment contracts in light of recent court decisions and regulatory scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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September 20, 2024
IPO Trio Looks To Raise $536M Combined As Autumn Begins
Three companies spanning the energy, healthcare and life sciences industries are preparing initial public offerings that could raise $536 million combined in the coming week, guided by six law firms, signaling an upturn in IPOs as autumn begins.
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September 20, 2024
Agriculture Tech Biz's $147M SPAC Merger Is Scrapped
Miami-headquartered special purpose acquisition company Agrinam Acquisition Corp. and Boston-based agricultural technology company Freight Farms Inc. have nixed their merger plans that would have seen Freight Farms go public at a market capitalization of around $147 million.
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September 20, 2024
Fed's Surprise Rate Cut Gives M&A Markets Needed Relief
Mergers and acquisitions activity is inextricably linked to borrowing costs, which means the Federal Reserve's larger than expected half-point interest rate cut could provide just the type of relief dealmakers need for a significant rebound, attorneys say.
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September 20, 2024
US Chamber Warns Del. Justices On TC Energy Case Fallout
The Chamber of Commerce of the United States warned Delaware's Supreme Court Friday of "detrimental and expensive consequences" from an unprecedented, $199 million damages ruling against TransCanada Corp. last year for aiding seller fiduciary breaches in its $13 billion acquisition of Columbia Pipeline Corp.
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September 20, 2024
2 SEC Commissioners Object To Whistleblower Award Secrecy
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioners Mark Uyeda and Hester Peirce have objected to the agency's recent decision to hand out a total of $122 million in two awards to four whistleblowers and issued a statement taking issue with the regulator's policy of saying little to nothing about why the rewards are issued.
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September 20, 2024
Silvergate Wants Activist Investor's Board Seat Play Blocked
The parent company of Silvergate Bank, a defunct bank that catered to the cryptocurrency industry, has asked the judge in its Delaware bankruptcy case to help head off what it described as an activist investor's effort to score a seat on the debtor's board so he can try to secure a payout for shareholders who are set to receive nothing under a Chapter 11 plan.
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September 19, 2024
CFTC Warns Of 'Profound' Harm In Election Betting Appeal
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission fought Thursday to prevent an online trading platform from offering betting on election outcomes while the agency appeals a trial court ruling that allowed the futures contracts to go live, warning the D.C. Circuit that the "high-stakes" event contracts threaten serious harm to election integrity.
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September 19, 2024
Crypto Exchange Must Refund Bitcoins, But In 2013 Dollars
A New York judge held Thursday that bygone cryptocurrency exchange Bitfloor improperly failed to return more than 200 of its customers' bitcoins upon shutting down in 2013, but said damages will be limited to the dollar value of the digital assets over a decade ago.
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September 19, 2024
Judge Gives Dow Jones Win In Article Thievery Case
A Texas federal judge has handed a win to publisher Dow Jones & Co. in a copyright infringement suit accusing an investment manager of wrongfully copying and distributing thousands of news articles from The Wall Street Journal.
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September 19, 2024
Halted DOL Fiduciary Regs Could Open Lane For SEC Action
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission might need to help clear up confusion about fiduciary investment advice standards in the wake of two Texas judges halting new retirement security regulations from the Labor Department, members of an SEC investor advisory committee said Thursday.
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September 19, 2024
No Coverage For Santander Shareholder Suit, Allianz Says
Allianz told a Massachusetts federal court that it doesn't owe coverage to Santander Holdings for an underlying class action brought by shareholders over the company's $2.5 billion deal to take its consumer finance entity private, arguing that multiple exclusions bar coverage for claims arising from the transaction.
Expert Analysis
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6 Considerations To Determine If A Cyber Incident Is Material
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent guidance on material cybersecurity incidents covers a range of ransomware scenarios, from a company paying a sum and regaining operations to recovering payment via cyberinsurance, but makes it clear that no single factor determines whether a cybersecurity incident is material, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
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Opinion
Litigation Funding Disclosure Key To Open, Impartial Process
Blanket investor and funding agreement disclosures should be required in all civil cases where the investor has a financial interest in the outcome in order to address issues ranging from potential conflicts of interest to national security concerns, says Bob Goodlatte, former U.S. House Representative for Virginia.
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Carbon Offset Case A Win For CFTC Enviro Fraud Task Force
An Illinois federal court's decision in Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Ikkurty — earning the CFTC a sizeable monetary award that will likely incentivize similar enforcement pursuit — shows the impact of the commission's Environmental Fraud Task Force, say attorneys at Steptoe.
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Whistleblowers Must Note 5 Key Differences Of DOJ Program
The U.S. Department of Justice’s recently unveiled whistleblower awards program diverges in key ways from similar programs at other agencies, and individuals must weigh these differences and look first to programs with stronger, proven protections before blowing the whistle, say Stephen Kohn and Geoff Schweller at Kohn Kohn.
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What NFL Draft Picks Have In Common With Lateral Law Hires
Nearly half of law firm lateral hires leave within a few years — a failure rate that is strikingly similar to the performance of NFL quarterbacks drafted in the first round — in part because evaluators focus too heavily on quantifiable metrics and not enough on a prospect's character traits, says Howard Rosenberg at Baretz+Brunelle.
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Foreign Threat Actors Pose Novel Risks To US Tech Cos.
A recent bulletin jointly issued by several U.S. intelligence agencies warns technology startups and the venture capital community about national security risks posed by foreign threat actors, so companies interested in raising foreign capital should watch for several red flags, say Robert Friedman and Jacob Marco at Holland & Knight.
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Open Questions 3 Years After 2nd Circ.'s Fugitive Ruling
The Second Circuit’s 2021 decision in U.S. v. Bescond, holding that a French resident indicted abroad did not meet the legal definition of a fugitive, deepened a circuit split on the fugitive disentitlement doctrine, and courts continue to grapple with the doctrine’s reach and applicability, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert.
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Replacing The Stigma Of Menopause With Law Firm Support
A large proportion of the workforce is forced to pull the brakes on their career aspirations because of the taboo surrounding menopause and a lack of consistent support, but law firms can initiate the cultural shift needed by formulating thoughtful workplace policies, says Barbara Hamilton-Bruce at Simmons & Simmons.
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Crypto Regs Could See A Reset Under The Next President
Donald Trump has taken a permissive policy stance favoring crypto, while Kamala Harris has been silent on the issue, but no matter who wins the presidential election, we may see a more lenient regulatory climate toward the digital currency than from the Biden administration, says Liam Murphy at McKool Smith.
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Planning Law Firm Content Calendars: What, When, Where
During the slower month of August, law firms should begin working on their 2025 content calendars, planning out a content creation and distribution framework that aligns with the firm’s objectives and maintains audience engagement throughout the year, says Jessica Kaplan at Legally Penned.
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Key Concerns To Confront In FDIC Brokered Deposit Proposal
Banks and fintech companies should note several fundamental issues with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s recent proposal to widen how it classifies brokered deposits, an attempt to limit prudential risk that could expose the industry and underbanked consumers who rely on bank-fintech apps to widespread unintended consequences, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.
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4 Steps To Address New Sanctions Time Bar Extension
Recent guidance from the Office of Foreign Assets Control clarifies details of the newly extended statute of limitations for civil and criminal enforcement of U.S. sanctions law, so compliance teams should implement key updates, including to lookback periods and recordkeeping policies, say attorneys at Freshfields.
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Series
Playing Golf Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Golf can positively affect your personal and professional life well beyond the final putt, and it’s helped enrich my legal practice by improving my ability to build lasting relationships, study and apply the rules, face adversity with grace, and maintain my mental and physical well-being, says Adam Kelly at Venable.
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Law Firms Should Move From Reactive To Proactive Marketing
Most law firm marketing and business development teams operate in silos, leading to an ad hoc, reactive approach, but shifting to a culture of proactive planning — beginning with comprehensive campaigns — can help firms effectively execute their broader business strategy, says Paul Manuele at PR Manuele Consulting.
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3 Ways To Limit Risks Of Black-Box AI In Financial Services
As regulators increasingly highlight the potential for artificial intelligence to make unfair consumer credit decisions, and require financial institutions to explain how these so-called black-box algorithms arrive at conclusions, companies should consider three key questions to reduce their regulatory risks from these tools, say Jeffrey Naimon and Caroline Stapleton at Orrick.