Securities

  • December 02, 2024

    Chancery OKs $345M Fee Award For $55B Musk Pay Fight

    Delaware's chancellor approved a $345 million attorney fee award Monday in the case that scuttled Tesla CEO Elon Musk's 10-year, $55.6 billion compensation plan, rejecting the plaintiff's bid for $5.6 billion in freely tradable company shares and declining to reinstate Musk's proposed pay.

  • December 02, 2024

    Freshfields Lands Onetime SEC Acting Enforcement Head

    Freshfields has added a litigation partner in its Washington, D.C., office who brings with her nearly 17 years of government experience including time as acting director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division, according to a Monday announcement.

  • December 02, 2024

    EB-5 Visa Scam Suit Against Fla. Immigration Atty Ends

    A Florida federal judge on Monday dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit against an immigration attorney over a $500,000 visa scam after the two parties filed a stipulation of dismissal.

  • December 02, 2024

    Australia Passes Public Country-By-Country Reporting

    Multinational businesses with large operations in Australia are required to publicly disclose information about their operations in tax havens as designated by the government under a country-by-country reporting law that lawmakers adopted following a two-year saga over concerns about the data's confidentiality.

  • December 02, 2024

    Ex-Palo Alto Engineer Fights Fraud Conviction At 9th Circ.

    A former Palo Alto Networks engineer urged the Ninth Circuit on Monday to overturn his securities fraud conviction and 18-month prison sentence, arguing that he didn't have a personal relationship with the tipper and so there isn't sufficient evidence to show he traded off of insider information.

  • November 27, 2024

    Zoom Offers SEC $18M To Settle 2020 Privacy Probe

    Zoom Communications disclosed in a U.S. Securities Exchange and Commission filing that it has offered $18 million to settle an agency investigation into "various security, data protection and privacy matters," including the videoconferencing platform's encryption.

  • November 27, 2024

    GM, Cruise Say DPA Has No Bearing On Securities Fraud Suit

    General Motors and its driverless car unit Cruise LLC have told a Michigan federal judge that Cruise's deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice over a San Francisco pedestrian accident doesn't help investors in a proposed securities fraud class action.

  • November 27, 2024

    Law Profs Tell Del. Justices Moelis Appeal Would Blunt DGCL

    Fourteen law professors have urged Delaware's Supreme Court to reject what they branded as a corporate bar effort to use an appeal from a Chancery Court ruling — potentially mooted for future claims by a new law — in order to "enact a sweeping transformation of the way that Delaware's corporate law gets made."

  • November 27, 2024

    Rentokil Hid Terminix Merger Issues, Pension Fund Alleges

    A pension fund claims in a new proposed class action that pest control company Rentokil Initial PLC hid disruptions and challenges during its merger with Terminix Global Holdings Inc. to fully integrating the acquired business, negatively impacting Rentokil's revenue growth as a result.

  • November 27, 2024

    GOP-Led States Accuse BlackRock Of Driving Up Coal Prices

    Texas is leading a coalition of nearly a dozen Republican-led states suing BlackRock Inc. and two other large asset managers for allegedly running an "investment cartel" that takes advantage of their large holdings in publicly traded energy companies to drive up coal prices, a claim that BlackRock has said is "baseless and defies common sense."

  • November 27, 2024

    CFPB Fights Student Loan Servicer's Bid To Pause Deal

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has told a Pennsylvania federal court that student loan servicer Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency shouldn't get to pause its work fulfilling a settlement just because a third party had appealed a separate deal with the loan holders.

  • November 27, 2024

    5th Circ. Reverses Treasury's Block Of Crypto Mixer

    The Fifth Circuit has rejected the government's blacklisting of Tornado Cash for "its role in laundering virtual currency for malicious cyber actors," saying the cryptocurrency service's immutable smart contracts, or lines of privacy-enabling software code, are not "property" and are therefore unownable and cannot be blocked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

  • November 27, 2024

    Ga. CPA Must Pay SEC $850K For Ponzi Scheme Role

    An Atlanta certified public accountant accused of serving as a front man for a convicted former Oppenheimer & Co. adviser's $110 million Ponzi scheme was hit with a money judgment of more than $854,000 by a Georgia federal judge.

  • November 27, 2024

    SEC Exempts More Debt Securities From New Trading Rules

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is relieving broker-dealers who quote unlisted stocks from increased information-gathering requirements that would have also applied to many fixed-income securities, a development attorneys say will prove welcome for debt issuers.

  • November 26, 2024

    GE Inks $362.5M Settlement In Investors' Stock Fraud Suit

    General Electric Co. shareholders asked a Manhattan federal judge to greenlight a $362.5 million settlement resolving long-running litigation on the cusp of trial that alleged the industrial giant's stock price plummeted after it was revealed the company fraudulently concealed cash flow problems.

  • November 26, 2024

    Warner Bros. Hit With Investor Suit Over Failed NBA Deal

    Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. investors Monday filed a proposed class action claiming that the entertainment company and its top brass made false and misleading statements about how negotiations with the NBA were really going and the state of its overall business and financial prospects.

  • November 26, 2024

    2nd Circ. Nixes VR Capital Venezuela Fraud Suit

    The Second Circuit has refused to revive VR Capital's lawsuit accusing Venezuela's state-owned oil company of fraud in connection with its issuance of some $2 billion in since-defaulted bonds, ruling Tuesday that the asset manager hadn't adequately pled its case.

  • November 26, 2024

    Wells Fargo Dodges 2nd Circ. Rehearing In $500M Plunge Suit

    The Second Circuit has rejected a rehearing bid by two investors seeking to revive their proposed class action accusing Wells Fargo Securities LLC of causing a Chicago fund manager lose at least $500 million by wrongfully forcing the liquidation of its mutual fund and other investments.

  • November 26, 2024

    Crypto Miner Can't Get Quick Appeal In SEC Fraud Suit

    A Utah man accused of defrauding crypto mining investors out of $18 million must face the claims that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought against him after a lower court judge on Tuesday declined his request to send the case to the Tenth Circuit.

  • November 26, 2024

    Netflix Ditches Investor Suit Over Account Sharing For Good

    A California federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a proposed class action accusing Netflix and its executives of misleading investors about growth challenges tied to account sharing, concluding "further leave to amend would be futile," since the investor plaintiffs were already given a chance to show that statements made were misleading.

  • November 26, 2024

    Autodesk Wants Out Of Investor Suit Over Internal Controls

    Autodesk Inc. asked a California federal judge on Tuesday to toss a proposed class action alleging the software company's stock price dropped after investors learned it lacked proper internal controls due to issues with its free cash flow and operating margin practices, saying its business plan statements at issue were "forward-looking" and accompanied by "cautionary" language.

  • November 26, 2024

    California's Top Bank, Fintech Regulator To Exit At Year's End

    The top banking and fintech regulator for California is departing from the state's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation in a little more than a month, an agency spokesperson told Law360 on Tuesday.

  • November 26, 2024

    DraftKings Wants Damages In NFLPA's Licensing Suit Axed

    DraftKings Inc. wants partially tossed a suit launched by the NFL Players Association alleging the sports betting giant failed to make good on a licensing agreement related to nonfungible tokens, saying that the players are not entitled to any damages but that as a threshold matter, the maximum potential damages should be capped.

  • November 25, 2024

    Ex-Wamco Exec Charged In 'Criminal Cherry-Picking Scheme'

    Federal prosecutors have accused Ken Leech, the former chief investment officer of Western Asset Management Co., of participating in a $600 million "criminal cherry-picking scheme" in which he favored certain clients at the expense of others, according to an indictment unsealed Monday in New York federal court.

  • November 25, 2024

    Native Corp. Faces Default In $3.4M Stock Scam Suit

    A Native American microcap company has until Dec. 6 to tell a federal district court judge why it shouldn't face a default judgment in a $3.4 million stock scam lawsuit after the Securities and Exchange Commission said its chief executive officer's "willful disobedience" warrants such a ruling.

Expert Analysis

  • 2nd Circ. Ruling Reaffirms Short-Swing Claims Have Standing

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    The Second Circuit's recent ruling in Packer v. Raging Capital reversing the dismissal of a shareholder's Section 16(b) derivative suit seeking to recover short-swing profits for lack of constitutional standing settles the uncertainty of the district court's decision, which could have undercut Congress' intent in crafting Section 16(b) in the first place, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • Inside OCC's Retail Nondeposit Investment Products Refresh

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    In addition to clarifying safe and sound risk management practices generally, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's revised booklet on retail nondeposit investment products updates its guidance around certain sales practices in light of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's adoption of Regulation Best Interest, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Is My Counterclaim Bound To Fall?

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    A Pennsylvania federal court’s recent dismissal of the defendants’ counterclaims in Morgan v. Noss should remind attorneys to avoid the temptation to repackage a claim’s facts and law into a mirror-image counterclaim, as this approach will often result in a waste of time and resources, says Matthew Selmasska at Kaufman Dolowich.

  • Why The SEC Is Targeting Short-And-Distort Schemes

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent crackdown on the illegal practice of short-and-distort trades highlights the urgent need for public companies to adopt proactive measures, including pursuing private rights of action, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • Series

    Playing Dungeons & Dragons Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing Dungeons & Dragons – a tabletop role-playing game – helped pave the way for my legal career by providing me with foundational skills such as persuasion and team building, says Derrick Carman at Robins Kaplan.

  • A Look At The Regulatory Scrutiny Facing Liquid Restaking

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    Recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions highlight the regulatory challenges facing emerging financial instruments like liquid restaking tokens and services, say Daniel Davis and Alexander Kim at Katten.

  • Del. Dispatch: Director Caremark Claims Need Extreme Facts

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    The Delaware Court of Chancery recently dismissed Caremark claims against the directors of Centene in Bricklayers Pension Fund of Western Pennsylvania v. Brinkley, indicating a high bar for a finding of the required element of bad faith for Caremark liability, and stressing the need to resist hindsight bias, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • 5 Insights Into FDIC's Final Rule On Big-Bank Resolution Plans

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    Although the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s recently finalized rule expanding resolution planning requirements for large banks was generally adopted as proposed, it includes key changes related to filing deadlines, review and feedback, and incorporates lessons learned — particularly from last year's bank failures, say attorneys at Cleary.

  • Jarkesy Ruling May Redefine Jury Role In Patent Fraud

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    Regardless of whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s Jarkesy ruling implicates the direction of inequitable conduct, which requires showing that the patentee made material statements or omissions to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the decision has created opportunities for defendants to argue more substantively for jury trials than ever before, say attorneys at Cadwalader.

  • 3 Leadership Practices For A More Supportive Firm Culture

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    Traditional leadership styles frequently amplify the inherent pressures of legal work, but a few simple, time-neutral strategies can strengthen the skills and confidence of employees and foster a more collaborative culture, while supporting individual growth and contribution to organizational goals, says Benjamin Grimes at BKG Leadership.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Don't Let Loper Lead To Bank Compliance Lull

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    Banking organizations are staring down a period of greater uncertainty over the next few years as the banking agencies and industry navigate the post-Chevron world, but banks must continue to have effective compliance programs in place even in the face of this unpredictability, say Lee Meyerson and Amanda Allexon at Simpson Thacher.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Hyperlinked Documents

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    Recent rulings show that counsel should engage in early discussions with clients regarding the potential of hyperlinked documents in electronically stored information, which will allow for more deliberate negotiation of any agreements regarding the scope of discovery, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Loper Bright Limits Federal Agencies' Ability To Alter Course

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to dismantle Chevron deference also effectively overrules its 2005 decision in National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X, greatly diminishing agencies' ability to change regulatory course from one administration to the next, says Steven Gordon at Holland & Knight.

  • How 3 Recent High Court Rulings Could Shape Fintech Policy

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decisions in Jarkesy, Loper Bright and Corner Post provide fintech companies with new legal strategies to challenge regulatory actions, but agency reactions to these rulings and inconsistent judicial interpretations could bring compliance challenges and uncertainties, says Amy Whitsel at FS Vector.

  • 2nd Circ. Case Reinforces Need For Advance Notice Bylaws

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    The Second Circuit's recent decision in Nano Dimension v. Murchinson illustrates that Section 13(d) of the Exchange Act is a square peg for a round hole, and that advance notice bylaws are far better at protecting against undisclosed coordination among activist shareholders, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

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