Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
Securities
-
September 25, 2024
Bumble Investor Says Dating App Overhyped Premium Model
A Bumble Inc. investor has launched a proposed securities class action in Texas federal court accusing the dating app's parent company of misleading investors about its financial outlook and success of a "premium plus" subscription tier, and causing a dramatic decline in Bumble's common stock price.
-
September 25, 2024
Rent The Runway, Gwyneth Paltrow Can't Escape Investor Suit
A New York federal judge on Wednesday trimmed a proposed class action suit against actress Gwyneth Paltrow and online clothing rental company Rent the Runway Inc., claiming the company failed to inform investors about major challenges it was facing in the run-up to its 2021 initial public offering.
-
September 25, 2024
Texas Man, 6 Companies To Pay $10.5M Over Forex Scheme
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Wednesday that it had secured a default judgment and $10.5 million in monetary relief against Rudy Avila and his six companies for defrauding more than 200 investors out of $6 million.
-
September 25, 2024
Terrorism Victims Sue For Share Of $4.3B Binance Plea
The U.S. government must put the $4.3 billion it obtained in its money laundering and sanctions violations case against Binance toward a federal fund for victims of state-sponsored terrorism, a new lawsuit in D.C. federal court alleges.
-
September 25, 2024
Meta Wants 'License' To Cover Up Past Events, Justices Told
Meta Platforms Inc. shareholders say the U.S. Supreme Court should not be swayed by the social media company's attempt to shake off a proposed class action tied to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, warning a high court ruling in favor of Facebook's parent company could give publicly traded companies "license to intentionally mislead investors."
-
September 25, 2024
Feds Say 'Wall Of Evidence' Supports Petrobras Bribery Case
A Connecticut oil trader violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by sending millions in bribes to officials at Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras through a shady intermediary, federal prosecutors told a jury during closing arguments Wednesday, arguing that a "wall of evidence" points to the defendant's intent.
-
September 25, 2024
E-Bike Maker Argues In Del. Supreme Court To Salvage Sale
An attorney for a private equity affiliate that beat a Barcelona-based electric scooter rental chain's attempt to force a closing on the scooter company's $100 million sale in Chancery Court told Delaware's Supreme Court Wednesday that the seller's current appeal ignores its own fatal contract breaches.
-
September 25, 2024
Merrill, Harvest To Pay SEC $9.3M For Ignoring Clients' Limits
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday announced that investment advisory firms Harvest Volatility Management LLC and Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc. will pay a combined $9.3 million to settle claims that they exceeded clients' designated investment limits over a two-year period, causing those clients to incur higher fees and losses.
-
September 25, 2024
7th Circ. Doubts London Depo Should Trigger New Fraud Trial
Seventh Circuit judges appeared skeptical Wednesday of a former investment manager's bid for a new trial after he was convicted of bilking investors of roughly $10 million because he could not physically confront a key witness who testified via deposition in London, saying he failed to adequately object to the circumstance.
-
September 25, 2024
Penalized Apple Atty Says He Was 'Demoralized' By Co. Culture
Apple Inc.'s former senior director of corporate law, who pled guilty to insider trading in 2022 and was later penalized $1.1 million in a civil case, had mental health disorders and was "demoralized" by the company's culture and executives' misconduct, he said in temporarily unsealed records in New Jersey federal court.
-
September 25, 2024
Shipman & Goodwin Atty Needed As Witness, DQ Bid Claims
A Connecticut company wants a Shipman & Goodwin LLP partner disqualified from representing a rival in a bond dispute surrounding a garbage sorting facility permit, saying the attorney was personally involved in some of the conduct in question.
-
September 25, 2024
NYSE Cancels Proposal To Extend SPAC Merger Deadlines
The New York Stock Exchange has pulled a proposal that would have provided special purpose acquisition companies with more time to complete mergers while remaining listed, several months after it sought regulatory approval for the extension.
-
September 25, 2024
Bar Works Crook Gets 7 Years For Role In $57M Global Fraud
A Manhattan federal judge hit an English real estate marketer with a seven-year prison sentence on Wednesday for joining what prosecutors call a global Ponzi scheme that tricked investors into pouring $57 million into the bogus workspace share venture Bar Works.
-
September 24, 2024
Bank Regulators, SEC Face GOP Inquiry Over Crypto Bulletin
House Republicans have called for the Federal Reserve and other agencies to turn over a host of documents for what the lawmakers say is an inquiry into the origins and behind-the-scenes policymaking impact of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's cryptocurrency accounting guidance.
-
September 24, 2024
'Be Careful What You Wish For' Post-Jarkesy, SEC Atty Says
A trial lawyer for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told the defense bar Tuesday to "be careful what you wish for" after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the agency's in-house court system, saying cases against gatekeepers "are not going away."
-
September 24, 2024
Biotech RenovaCare Investors Seek OK Of $2M Deal
Biotechnology company RenovaCare Inc. has reached a $2 million deal to end a consolidated proposed class action alleging it pumped its stock prices by using a secret paid promotional campaign, the company's investors have told a New Jersey federal judge.
-
September 24, 2024
Feds Charge AI Co. Founder With $40M Fraud
The founder and former CEO of a company that purported to sell artificial intelligence-based business automation software faces federal criminal charges and a civil lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, authorities announced Tuesday, alleging he lied about the firm's revenues and customer relationships to entice investors.
-
September 24, 2024
Athlete Investment Co. Gets Claims Nipped In $1M Fraud Suit
A New York federal judge has trimmed a suit alleging that an athlete investment company that aimed to "tokenize" and sell shares of professional athletes was involved in a $1 million fraud and lied about its business plan, saying the plaintiff is conflicted from bringing certain derivative claims.
-
September 24, 2024
SEC Orders Crypto Cos. To Pay $700K Over Stablecoin Offers
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday unveiled a $700,000 settlement with stablecoin issuer TrueCoin and affiliated lending business TrustToken over alleged misrepresentations about the stability of the token and failures to register its use in "profit-making opportunities."
-
September 24, 2024
3 Takeaways From Gensler's Big Day Before The House
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler appeared before the U.S. House of Representative for potentially the last time on Tuesday, where he stuck up for his agency's actions in the crypto space and hinted at the possible revival of share buyback rules.
-
September 24, 2024
SEC Fines Weedmaps' Parent Co. $1.5M Over User Metrics
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday fined the parent company of cannabis tech company Weedmaps $1.5 million for allegedly making misleading statements about its monthly active users.
-
September 24, 2024
Google Investors' Atty Defends Fees For $350M Privacy Deal
Counsel for Google LLC shareholders who reached a $350 million settlement with Alphabet Inc. over claims they were deceived about a 2018 data breach urged a California federal judge Tuesday to approve the deal, including about $66.5 million for attorneys, calling the fees more than reasonable.
-
September 24, 2024
'Joker' Producer's Broker To Pay $60M In Ponzi Scheme Suit
An investor asked an Illinois state judge Tuesday for his early approval of a $60 million settlement with an investment adviser who convinced her and others to put money toward an international Ponzi scheme she says movie producer Jason Cloth carried out by raising new funds to pay off older investors.
-
September 24, 2024
Philips Must Face Investor Suit Over FDA Compliance Issues
Health technology company Koninklijke Philips and its former CEO cannot escape a suit accusing them of misleading investors about the safety and compliance of its subsidiary's sleep and respiratory care products, which were recalled in 2021, but its chief financial officer and a former CEO of a Philips subsidiary were allowed to exit the case for good.
-
September 24, 2024
Feds Say BitMEX Should Owe $428M For Flouting AML Rules
Federal prosecutors urged a Manhattan federal judge to impose a $428 million penalty for offshore crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX after the firm admitted to lax anti-money laundering procedures, arguing the more than $100 million the firm and founders have already paid to regulators is not enough to deter other crypto firms from Bank Secrecy Act violations.
Expert Analysis
-
Series
After Chevron: Creating New Hurdles For ESG Rulemaking
The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, limiting court deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, could have significant impacts on the future of ESG regulation, creating new hurdles for agency rulemaking around these emerging issues, and calling into question current administrative actions, says Leah Malone at Simpson Thacher.
-
Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
-
Navigating The Extent Of SEC Cybersecurity Breach Authority
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's broad reading of its authority under Section 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act in the R.R. Donnelley and SolarWinds actions has ramifications for companies dealing with cybersecurity breaches, but it remains to be seen whether the commission's use of the provision will withstand judicial scrutiny, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.
-
Best Text Practices In Light Of Terraform's $4.5B Fraud Deal
Text messages were extremely important in a recent civil trial against Terraform Labs, leading to a $4.5 billion settlement, so litigants in securities fraud cases need to have robust mobile data policies that address the content and retention of messages, and the obligations of employees to allow for collection, say Josh Sohn and Alicia Clausen at Crowell & Moring.
-
Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.
-
Dapper Settlement Offers Rules Of The Road For NFT Issuers
The terms of a $4 million settlement in a class action alleging that Dapper Labs sold its NBA Top Shot Moments as unregistered securities may be a model for third parties that wish to avoid securities liability in connection with offering digital asset non-fungible token collectibles, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
-
Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
-
Navigating The New Rise Of Greenwashing Litigation
As greenwashing lawsuits continue to gain momentum with a shift in focus to carbon-neutrality claims, businesses must exercise caution and ensure transparency in their environmental marketing practices, taking cues from recent legal challenges in the airline industry, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.
-
In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.
-
How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.
-
First-Of-Its-Kind Chancery Ruling Will Aid SPAC Defendants
The Delaware Chancery Court's first full dismissal of claims challenging a special purpose acquisition company transaction under the entire fairness doctrine in the recent Hennessy Capital Acquisition Stockholder Litigation establishes useful precedent to abate the flood of SPAC litigation, say Lisa Bugni and Benjamin Lee at King & Spalding.
-
How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.
-
Supreme Court's ALJ Ruling Carries Implications Beyond SEC
In its recent Jarkesy opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the types of cases that can be tried before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house administrative law judges, setting the stage for challenges to the constitutionality of ALJs across other agencies, say Robert Robertson and Kimberley Church at Dechert.
-
Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.
-
Series
After Chevron: No Deference, No Difference For SEC Or CFTC
The Chevron doctrine did not fundamentally alter the interplay between the courts and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the development of the securities and commodities laws — and its demise will not do so either, says Dan Berkovitz at Millennium Management.