Capital Markets

  • 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.

  • August 28, 2024

    Raymond James Hit With Suit Over 'Cash Sweep' Programs

    Financial services giant Raymond James faces a proposed class action in Florida federal court alleging its so-called cash sweep programs offer interest rates "significantly lower" than those offered by competitors, in violation of federal law.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • August 28, 2024

    Businessman Can't Force $1B Gramercy Suit Into Arbitration

    A Wyoming federal judge has ruled that Gramercy Funds Management will not have to arbitrate its racketeering lawsuit accusing a Ukrainian businessman of fraudulently transferring more than a billion dollars from his agricultural business, a debtor of the Connecticut-based hedge fund.

  • August 28, 2024

    BofA Hit With Suit Alleging 'Exploitative' Trust Insurance Costs

    A trust beneficiary accused Bank of America in Georgia federal court of charging a trust it manages "unnecessarily expensive" insurance coverage for a residential property, arguing the bank breached its duties both as a trustee and a fiduciary.

  • 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.

  • 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.  

  • August 28, 2024

    SEC Omits 'Swing Pricing' Plan From Fund Disclosure Rules

    A divided U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday agreed to require more detailed and frequent disclosures from mutual funds, though regulators dropped plans — at least for now — to implement a controversial "swing pricing" provision.

  • August 28, 2024

    Farella Braun Can Pursue Unpaid SVB Fees From FDIC

    Farella Braun & Martel LLP can go after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for $49,000 in legal fees owed by Silicon Valley Bank's parent after the agency was appointed as the bank's receiver, a California federal judge ruled Wednesday.

  • August 28, 2024

    Greenberg Traurig Builds PE Team With Kirkland Hires

    Greenberg Traurig LLP has brought on two fund formation partners from Kirkland & Ellis LLP to continue its growth into the private equity space, according to an announcement this week by the firm.

  • August 28, 2024

    Latham Leads Entertainment-Focused SPAC's $150M Offering

    Shares of special purpose acquisition company Black Spade Acquisition II Co., which plans to seek a merger target in the entertainment, lifestyle or technology industries, began trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday following the company's $150 million initial public offering.

  • August 27, 2024

    Wells Fargo Says 'Good Faith' Efforts Ax Investors' Bias Suit

    Wells Fargo & Co. urged a California federal judge Tuesday to toss a derivative lawsuit filed by a putative class of shareholders claiming the bank's board of directors failed to address its discriminatory lending and hiring practices, saying there's evidence of "good-faith" efforts to monitor compliance in those areas.

  • August 27, 2024

    Exec To Pay SEC $190K Over Macquarie Insider Trading Claim

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says a New York man who used inside information he learned as a Macquarie Group investor relations executive to profit from a then-pending deal to sell its airport services business to KKR & Co. has agreed to pay nearly $190,000 to settle the agency's claims that he violated securities laws. ​

  • August 27, 2024

    Electric Jet Co. Grounds Investor Suit Over SPAC Disclosures

    Investors in German aerospace company Lilium have failed to adequately allege that the company lied about its electric jet production efforts as it went through a $3.3 billion go-public merger with a special purpose acquisition company, a Florida federal judge determined in permanently tossing the suit.

  • August 27, 2024

    CFTC Fines TOTSA $48M Over Market Manipulation Attempts

    Swiss energy trader TOTSA will pay $48 million for allegedly trying to manipulate the market for futures contracts linked to a type of refined gas mainly used in automobiles in Europe, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Tuesday, with one commissioner dissenting over "flimsy evidence that is speculative and circumstantial." 

  • August 27, 2024

    SEC Cites Amazon's FTC Loss In Coinbase Document Dispute

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday told a New York federal judge that a recent ruling denying Amazon's request to review internal documents from the Federal Trade Commission bolsters its own bid to shield internal communications in its enforcement suit against crypto exchange Coinbase.

  • August 27, 2024

    Self-Driving Truck Co. Inks $189M Deal To End Investor Suit

    Self-driving trucking company TuSimple Holdings Inc. has agreed to pay $189 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it misled investors about its safety record and payments to a Chinese rival that opened it up to U.S. government investigations, according to a filing in California federal court.

  • August 27, 2024

    Deutsche Bank, Rabo Beat Antitrust Suit Over Euro Bonds

    A New York federal judge has tossed an antitrust suit against Deutsche Bank AG and Rabo Securities USA, alleging they conspired to fix the price of European government-issued euro-dominated bonds sold throughout the U.S. between 2005 and 2016, saying the plaintiffs lack standing.

  • August 27, 2024

    Del. Court Nixes Trump Media Contempt Bid In Share Suit

    A Delaware vice chancellor declined on Tuesday to find Donald Trump's social media venture in contempt for suing in Florida to block the release of two Trump Media & Technology Group founders' shares, while the same founders are battling for the stock in the Court of Chancery.

  • August 27, 2024

    NFL Union Sues DraftKings Over Broken NFT Licensing Deal

    The NFL Players Association has accused DraftKings Inc. of failing to make good on a licensing agreement when the online sportsbook decided to cease payments after shuttering its nonfungible token marketplace in the wake of a civil suit that argued DraftKings' NFTs offended securities laws.

  • August 27, 2024

    New Jersey Man Gets 3 Years In Prison For Forex Fraud

    A New Jersey man deemed a "modern day snake oil salesman" by Philadelphia's top federal prosecutor has been sentenced to just over three years in prison for defrauding hundreds of investors out of more than $500,000.

  • August 27, 2024

    Treasury Asked To Scrap Stock Buyback Tax's Funding Rule

    Business groups urged the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday to remove what's known as the funding rule in forthcoming final regulations on the stock buyback tax, saying the provision would go beyond Congress' intentions for the levy, which aims to deter companies from giving outsize rewards to shareholders.

  • August 27, 2024

    Nasdaq Seeks SEC's Green Light To Launch Bitcoin Options

    The Nasdaq stock exchange said Tuesday it is seeking regulatory approval to allow the listing of an options tool that tracks the price of bitcoin, a move designed to expand institutional and retail trading of cryptocurrency-related assets.

Expert Analysis

  • What Cos. Are Reporting Under New SEC Cybersecurity Rule

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    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.

  • Binance Ruling Spotlights Muddled Post-Morrison Landscape

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    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.

  • Del. Match.com Ruling Maintains Precedent In Time Of Change

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    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.

  • First 10b5-1 Insider Trading Case Raises Compliance Issues

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    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.

  • FDIC Bank Merger Reviews Could Get More Burdensome

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    Recently proposed changes to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. bank merger review process would expand the agency's administrative processes, impose new evidentiary burdens on parties around competitive effects and other statutory approval factors, and continue the trend of long and unpredictable processing periods, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • Series

    Whitewater Kayaking Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    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.

  • This Earth Day, Consider How Your Firm Can Go Greener

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    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.

  • New Proposal Signals Sharper Enforcement Focus At CFIUS

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    Last week's proposed rule aimed at broadening the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States' enforcement authority over foreign investments and increasing penalties for violations signals that CFIUS intends to continue expanding its aggressive monitoring of national security issues, say attorneys at Kirkland.

  • Traversing The Web Of Nonjudicial Grievance Mechanisms

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    Attorneys at Covington provide an overview of how companies can best align their environmental and human rights compliance with "hard-law" requirements like the EU's recently approved Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive while also navigating the complex global network of existing nonjudicial grievance mechanisms.

  • Opinion

    Post-Moelis Del. Corp. Law Proposal Would Hurt Stockholders

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    The proposed Delaware General Corporation Law amendment in response to the Court of Chancery's recent opinion in West Palm Beach Firefighters' Pension Fund v. Moelis would upend the foundational principle of corporate law holding that directors govern corporations in the interest of stockholders — and the potential harm would be substantial, say attorneys at Block & Leviton.

  • At 'SEC Speaks,' A Focus On Rebuilding Trust Amid Criticism

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    At the Practising Law Institute's SEC Speaks conference last week, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission leadership highlighted efforts to rebuild and restore trust in the U.S. capital markets by addressing investor concerns through regulatory measures and enforcement actions, emphasizing the need for cooperation from market participants, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.

  • Practicing Law With Parkinson's Disease

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    This Parkinson’s Awareness Month, Adam Siegler at Greenberg Traurig discusses his experience working as a lawyer with Parkinson’s disease, sharing both lessons on how to cope with a diagnosis and advice for supporting colleagues who live with the disease.

  • Calif. Verdict Showcases SEC's New 'Shadow Trading' Theory

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    Last week's insider trading verdict, delivered against biopharmaceutical executive Matthew Panuwat by a California federal jury, signals open season on a new area of regulatory enforcement enabled by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's shadow trading theory, say Perrie Weiner and Aaron Goodman at Baker McKenzie.

  • Series

    Playing Hockey Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Nearly a lifetime of playing hockey taught me the importance of avoiding burnout in all aspects of life, and the game ultimately ended up providing me with the balance I needed to maintain success in my legal career, says John Riccione at Taft.

  • ESG Challenges In Focus After Sierra Club Opposes SEC Rule

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    The Sierra Club's recent objection to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related disclosures for investors presents an unusual — pro-disclosure — legal challenge and an opportunity to take a close look at the varying critiques of ESG regulations, say Colin Pohlman, and Jane Luxton and Paul Kisslinger at Lewis Brisbois.

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