Securities

  • October 16, 2024

    NYSE Seeks To Curb Reverse Splits In Latest Crackdown

    The New York Stock Exchange wants to limit companies' ability to rely on reverse stock splits to raise their share prices and avoid delisting, submitting a proposal shortly after regulators approved a Nasdaq plan to rein in such splits.

  • October 16, 2024

    SEC Data Contractor Faked Audit Certification, Feds Say

    The CEO of a company that received roughly $11 million from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to provide data infrastructure services was charged in D.C. federal court with creating a shell entity to fraudulently claim his business was certified for high-level reliability and security, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

  • October 16, 2024

    PE Firm Trashed Exec To Avoid Payout In $98M Deal, Suit Says

    A Summit Partners affiliate and several executives concocted false allegations of misconduct to get out of fully compensating the owner of an investment management firm as part of an acquisition worth a reported $97.6 million, according to a complaint filed in Massachusetts state court.

  • October 16, 2024

    2 SDNY Terror Finance Cases Against Binance Stay Separate

    Two suits claiming Binance unlawfully fostered terrorist activity, filed in the wake of the cryptocurrency platform's $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, will proceed separately in the Southern District of New York, a Manhattan federal judge said Wednesday.

  • October 16, 2024

    RTX To Pay $1B For Qatari Bribes And Defrauding US Gov't

    RTX Corp. and its Raytheon subsidiary have agreed to pay approximately $1 billion and enter into two separate deferred prosecution agreements in connection with a bribery scheme to secure Qatari military contracts, as well as separate ploys to defraud the U.S. government in deals for Patriot missile and radar systems.

  • October 16, 2024

    US Fails To Revoke Bail Of Crypto Chief Wanted In Fraud Case

    The U.S. government failed on Wednesday to keep the former chief executive of a $7.5 billion crypto-asset business in custody while he fights extradition for allegedly manipulating the market for his company's virtual tokens, as a judge deemed him a low flight risk.

  • October 15, 2024

    Conn. Trader Pilfered $4.1M From Struggling Firm, SEC Says

    A Greenwich, Conn.-based investment adviser stole more than $4.1 million from a pair of investment funds he managed to help prop up his family's "expensive lifestyle" and counter his personal financial woes, including several tax liens and foreclosure attempts on his home, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has alleged.

  • October 15, 2024

    Santander Settles Investors' Squeeze-Out Suit For $162.5M

    Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. has agreed to shell out $162.5 million to put to rest stockholders' consolidated class action challenging a $2.5 billion minority squeeze-out merger, according to a stipulation filed Monday in Delaware's Court of Chancery.

  • October 15, 2024

    Exec's $77M WeWork Offer Was Stupid, Not Fraud, Jury Told

    Counsel for the former CEO of real estate investment firm Arciterra told a Manhattan federal jury Tuesday his client was a fool for making what prosecutors described as a fake $77 million tender offer for a controlling stake in WeWork before its bankruptcy, but he wasn't trying to falsely pump up the coworking company's stock price.

  • October 15, 2024

    Crypto Huckster Slammed With 20 Years For Forcount Fraud

    A New York federal judge on Tuesday sentenced an Ecuadorean man from Florida to 20 years in prison for pushing the $14 million, international Forcount cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme on his fellow Latinos over five years, saying he caused incalculable damage.

  • October 15, 2024

    10th Circ. Won't Reboot Short Sellers' Suit Against Overstock

    In a decision dealing with matters of first impression, the Tenth Circuit on Tuesday declined to revive a hedge fund's proposed class action accusing Overstock.com Inc. and its leadership of manipulating the market when it said it would pay shareholders using cryptocurrency but abandoned the plan to force short sellers into a "squeeze."

  • October 15, 2024

    SafeMoon Execs Can't Beat Fraud Charges Now, Feds Say

    The crypto executives behind the alleged SafeMoon fraud can't claim their conduct was beyond the reach of U.S. courts at this stage of litigation, federal prosecutors said in a brief that pushed back on the executives' bid to dismiss the indictment.

  • October 15, 2024

    SEC Says Robot Co.'s AI Caretaker Was Mostly A Dummy

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued a robotics and artificial intelligence startup and its founder in Florida federal court Tuesday, accusing them of misleading investors about the company's ability to develop an AI-infused hologram and a robot to help families with childcare and other tasks.

  • October 15, 2024

    Kirkland-Led Boeing Seeks Up To $35B Amid Labor Strike

    Boeing notified regulators on Tuesday of plans to raise up to $35 billion through securities offerings and a credit agreement, guided by Kirkland & Ellis LLP, as the aviation giant seeks access to cash amid a prolonged strike and production cuts.

  • October 15, 2024

    Hedge Fund Urges Justices To Hear Swing-Trade Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked by a hedge fund facing insider trading allegations to address "significant and recurring issues" that allowed a 1-800-Flowers.com shareholder to proceed with his derivative lawsuit despite failing to prove that the company was harmed in any way by the fund's short-swing trades.

  • October 15, 2024

    Chancery Urged To Toss Smart & Final $1.1B Sale Challenge

    An attorney for funds of Ares Alternative Management Corp. told Delaware's chancellor on Tuesday a stockholder suit alleging breaches of fiduciary duty and corporate waste in a $1.1 billion sale of Smart & Final Stores Inc. failed to show disabling conflicts among company principals or advisers.

  • October 15, 2024

    No 'Third Bite' For Ex-Lender's FDIC Suit, Judge Rules

    A D.C. federal judge has tossed a lawsuit from a former small business financier contesting the constitutionality of a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. enforcement action against him, saying the plaintiff has already twice litigated and lost the case in Rhode Island.

  • October 15, 2024

    Morgan Stanley, BofA Sued Over Cash Sweep Programs

    Minnesota-based financial services company Safron Capital Corp. launched a pair of proposed class actions against Morgan Stanley and Bank of America in New York alleging the firms used their so-called cash sweep programs "to generate massive revenue for themselves at the expense of their customers."

  • October 15, 2024

    Aurora Cannabis Gets First Nod For $8M Investor Suit Deal

    Aurora Cannabis Inc.'s $8.05 million settlement with a proposed class of investors who accused it of orchestrating a $21.7 million "round-trip sale" to keep its stock prices high got a U.S. magistrate judge's initial sign-off along with an order pausing the parties' dispute while the deal is reviewed.

  • October 15, 2024

    Walmart, Execs Settle Chancery Opioid Suit For $123M

    Walmart and its directors and officers have agreed to a $123 million deal to end a stockholder class derivative lawsuit in Delaware's Court of Chancery that accused the nationwide retailer of multiyear opioid prescription oversight failures, potentially resolving class claims dating to early 2020.

  • October 15, 2024

    Ga. Fund Manager Who Fled Country Cops To Fraud Charge

    An Atlanta financier admitted Tuesday to running a fund that ripped off investors to the tune of millions of dollars before fleeing the country as the scheme collapsed, pleading guilty to a single charge of interstate transfers of stolen money, prosecutors said.

  • October 15, 2024

    Coinbase Ally Seeks To Compel SEC To Fulfill Info Request

    A research consultancy working with crypto exchange Coinbase said Tuesday that it plans to seek a quick win in its case to compel internal documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after the agency allegedly said it would restart its review of the requests three years from now.

  • October 15, 2024

    Viks Must Face Asset Sale Meddling Suit, Deutsche Bank Says

    Deutsche Bank AG's lawsuit alleging that billionaire Alexander Vik and his daughter interfered in the court-ordered sale of shares in a Norwegian software company is separate from the issue that a Connecticut judge already decided in 2021, so the defendants are wrong to claim that it is barred, the bank said in seeking to keep the case alive.

  • October 15, 2024

    Ex-WH Senior Associate Counsel Rejoins Ropes & Gray

    Ropes & Gray LLP announced Tuesday that an attorney rejoined the firm's Washington, D.C., office as counsel after most recently serving as senior associate counsel to President Joe Biden.

  • October 15, 2024

    Law Firms Diverge As Anti-ESG Pushback Continues

    A continuing onslaught of legislation and litigation opposing corporate environmental, social and governance actions has created a fork in the road for law firms, with some choosing to scale back efforts and others pushing ahead with their internal ESG and diversity, equity and inclusion goals.

Expert Analysis

  • 3 Areas Of Enforcement Risk Facing The EV Industry

    Author Photo

    Companies in the EV manufacturing ecosystem are experiencing a boom in business, but with this boom comes increased regulatory and enforcement risks, from the corruption issues that have historically pervaded the extractive sector to newer risks posed by artificial intelligence, say attorneys at MoFo.

  • American Airlines ESG Ruling Could Alter ERISA Landscape

    Author Photo

    The Spence v. American Airlines ESG trial, speeding toward a conclusion in a Texas federal court, could foretell a dramatic expansion in ERISA liability, with plan sponsors vulnerable to claims that they didn't foresee short-term dips in stock prices, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

  • SVB Ch. 11 Shows Importance Of Filing Proof Of Claim Early

    Author Photo

    After a New York bankruptcy court’s recent ruling in SVB’s Chapter 11 case denied late claims filing requests related to post-bar date events, parties with potential claims against a debtor may need to seriously consider filing protective proofs of claim, says Kyle Arendsen at Squire Patton.

  • Del. Dispatch: 27.6% Stockholder Not A Controller

    Author Photo

    The Delaware Court of Chancery's recent decision in Sciannella v. AstraZeneca — which found that the pharma giant, a 26.7% stockholder of Viela Bio Inc., was not a controller of Viela, despite having management control — shows that overall context matters when challenging transactions on breach of fiduciary duty grounds, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • Cyber Incident Response Checklist For SEC Compliance

    Author Photo

    In light of recent guidance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which clarified the distinction between two types of cybersecurity incident disclosures, companies should align their materiality assessment, incident response and disclosure control processes to bolster compliance and provide a measure of protection, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Loss Causation Ruling Departs From Usual Securities Cases

    Author Photo

    A California federal court recently dismissed Ramos v. Comerica, finding that the allegations failed to establish loss causation, but the reasoning is in tension with the pleading-stage approaches generally followed by both courts and economists in securities fraud litigation, say Jesse Jensen and Aasiya Glover at Bernstein Litowitz.

  • A Simple Proposal For Improving E-Discovery In MDLs

    Author Photo

    Given the importance of e-discovery in multidistrict litigation, courts, parties and counsel shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel in each newly consolidated case — and a simple process for sharing e-discovery lessons and knowledge across MDLs could benefit everyone involved, particularly clients, say Benjamin Barnett and Shauna Itri at Seeger Weiss.

  • Opinion

    Now More Than Ever, Lawyers Must Exhibit Professionalism

    Author Photo

    As society becomes increasingly fractured and workplace incivility is on the rise, attorneys must champion professionalism and lead by example, demonstrating how lawyers can respectfully disagree without being disagreeable, says Edward Casmere at Norton Rose.

  • What FTX Case Taught Us About Digital Asset Recoverability

    Author Photo

    FTX's Chapter 11 plan has drawn lots of attention, but the focus should be on the anticipated outcome for investors, which counters several myths about digital currencies, innovation and recoverability, says Kyla Curley at StoneTurn.

  • How To Survive Shareholder Activism

    Author Photo

    In an era where shareholder activism is on the rise, companies must identify weaknesses, clearly communicate strategies, update board composition and engage with shareholders consistently in order to avoid disruptive shareholder activism and safeguard the interests of both the company and its shareholders, say J.T. Ho at Orrick and Greg Taxin at Spotlight Advisors.

  • 'Outsourcing' Ruling, 5 Years On: A Warning, Not A Watershed

    Author Photo

    A New York federal court’s 2019 ruling in U.S. v. Connolly, holding that the government improperly outsourced an investigation to Deutsche Bank, has not undercut corporate cooperation incentives as feared — but companies should not completely ignore the lessons of the case, say Temidayo Aganga-Williams and Anna Nabutovsky at Selendy Gay.

  • Series

    Serving In The National Guard Makes Me A Better Lawyer

    Author Photo

    My ongoing military experience as a judge advocate general in the National Guard has shaped me as a person and a lawyer, teaching me the importance of embracing confidence, balance and teamwork in both my Army and civilian roles, says Danielle Aymond at Baker Donelson.

  • Will Texas Stock Exchange Provide Regulatory Haven?

    Author Photo

    While the newly proposed Texas Stock Exchange may represent a market reaction to increasingly complex regulations, those looking to list on a national securities exchange should consider that their choice of an exchange may not relieve them of some of the most burdensome public company requirements, say Elizabeth McNichol and Ryan Lilley at Katten.

  • Equity Rights Offering Considerations As Maturity Cliff Looms

    Author Photo

    Current market uncertainties make an equity rights offering — involving affiliate backstop investors — a cost-effective, capital-raising transaction for distressed companies looking to manage their leverage ahead of the impending maturity of a substantial number of COVID-era debt issuances, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.

  • A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates

    Author Photo

    Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.

Want to publish in Law360?


Submit an idea

Have a news tip?


Contact us here
Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the Securities archive.
Hello! I'm Law360's automated support bot.

How can I help you today?

For example, you can type:
  • I forgot my password
  • I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email
  • How do I sign up for a newsletter?
Ask a question!