Securities

  • July 03, 2024

    McKinsey Can Exit Rival's Bankruptcy Conflicts RICO Suit

    A Manhattan federal judge Wednesday tossed a lawsuit brought by the founder of turnaround consultant AlixPartners accusing rival McKinsey & Co. of intentionally failing to disclose disqualifying conflicts of interest in big bankruptcy cases, saying the founder doesn't have standing to sue under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

  • July 03, 2024

    Guo Witnesses Point To Chinese Harassment Of Dissidents

    Defense witnesses in the $1 billion fraud trial of Miles Guo told a Manhattan federal jury Wednesday that the Chinese dissident is a prime target of "Operation Fox Hunt," an alleged program within China's government that aims to silence and repatriate critics of the regime.

  • July 03, 2024

    SEC Says Apparel Co.'s Preemptive Crypto Suit Is Unripe

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told a Texas federal judge on Wednesday a crypto industry group and apparel company can't sue the regulator over its alleged "digital-asset policy" since the parties can't point to any rule or action to challenge.

  • July 03, 2024

    NYC Pensions Defeat Challenge To Fossil Fuel Divestments

    A trio of New York City pension plans on Wednesday beat a lawsuit claiming they'd damaged public employees' retirement funds by removing $3.9 billion from investments in fossil fuels, with a New York state judge ruling the workers hadn't shown they'd been harmed by the divestments.

  • July 03, 2024

    Blackwells Loses Bid To See Disney Books On ValueAct

    The Walt Disney Co. does not have to give activist shareholder Blackwells Capital more information about an agreement that Disney made with ValueAct Capital, a Delaware Chancery Court judge ruled Wednesday, finding that Blackwells had "failed to meet its burden to prove a credible basis to suspect wrongdoing."

  • July 03, 2024

    SentinelOne Beats Investor Suit Over $27M Revision, For Now

    Cybersecurity company SentinelOne Inc. has beaten a proposed investor class action filed after its $27 million downward revision of one of its key business metrics for its 2023 fiscal year, though a California federal judge gave the shareholders a chance to revise their suit.

  • July 03, 2024

    Deal Reached In Del. Suit Targeting Gores-Backed UWM SPAC

    Architects of a $16 billion special purpose acquisition company merger that took United Wholesale Mortgage public have reportedly agreed to settle a Delaware Chancery Court stockholder suit accusing private equity billionaire Alec Gores and others of misleading investors.

  • July 03, 2024

    NBA Marketing Arm Must Face NFT Privacy Suit

    A California federal judge kept alive a proposed class action against the NBA's marketing arm over privacy concerns related to the nonfungible token marketplace known as NBA Top Shot, saying the amended version of the suit addresses previous deficiencies in pleading that NBA Properties participated in a joint venture.

  • July 03, 2024

    Feds Can't Get Atty Communications With NJ Fraudster Yet

    A New Jersey federal judge on Wednesday rejected a bid from prosecutors to get access to communications between convicted, and later pardoned, fraudster Eliyahu Weinstein and an Israeli attorney who admitted to participating in an alleged Ponzi scheme, ruling it is too early for the court to determine if the information is privileged.

  • July 03, 2024

    Morgan Lewis Benefit Plan Exits Atty's ERISA Suit

    An attorney at Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP agreed to drop claims against her employee benefit plan in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit in Pennsylvania federal court alleging her long-term disability benefits were abruptly terminated after applying criteria irrelevant to her work.

  • July 03, 2024

    1st Circ. Hands Hearing Loss Biotech Win In Stock-Drop Suit

    A panel of the First Circuit declined to revive an investor class action alleging that a hearing loss treatment company and some of its executives concealed disappointing clinical trial results, saying there was no evidence the company had knowingly made false statements about the trial.

  • July 03, 2024

    Cerevel Investors Allege Insider Trades Pre-$8.7B AbbVie Deal

    A pension fund shareholder of Cerevel Therapeutics Holdings Inc. has sued the biopharmaceutical company in Delaware's Court of Chancery, seeking documents to investigate potential fiduciary duty breaches and possible insider trading shortly before the company announced its pending $8.7 billion merger with AbbVie Inc.

  • July 03, 2024

    Weil Adds Mayer Brown Corporate Partner In New York

    Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP has hired a former Mayer Brown LLP partner, who joins the firm's New York office to work on private funds issues and with investors, according to an announcement Tuesday.

  • July 03, 2024

    After Chevron Deference: What Lawyers Need To Know

    This term, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference, a precedent established 40 years ago that said when judges could defer to federal agencies' interpretations of law in rulemaking. Here, catch up with Law360's coverage of what is likely to happen next.

  • July 03, 2024

    Chancery Tosses Challenge To $3B AstraZeneca Viela Bio Sale

    AstraZeneca PLC and a U.K. affiliate beat late Tuesday a Delaware Court of Chancery stockholder suit accusing the company of orchestrating an underpriced, $3 billion sale of clinical stage biopharmaceutical venture Viela Bio Inc. in order to clear the way for AstraZeneca's purchase of a larger competitor.

  • July 02, 2024

    Ozy's Watson Says He's No Fraudster, Judge Accused Of Bias

    Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson on Tuesday sought to rebut claims of deceiving financial backers of the media and entertainment company, denying any involvement in a ploy to impersonate a YouTube executive in order to secure funding from Goldman Sachs, while defense counsel continued to accuse the trial judge of bias.

  • July 02, 2024

    Ex-Senior Apple Atty To Pay SEC $1.1M For Insider Trading

    Apple's former director of corporate law must pay $1.1 million to securities regulators stemming from criminal insider trading charges to which he pled guilty in 2022, a New Jersey federal judge said Tuesday, finding that his "egregious" violations warrant the penalty since "his very job" was to ensure compliance with securities laws.

  • July 02, 2024

    DraftKings Must Face Securities Suit Over NFTs

    A Massachusetts federal judge won't toss a proposed class action claiming that DraftKings Inc. sold unregistered non-fungible tokens on its marketplace, ruling that the suit plausibly alleges that the company falsely advertised that its NFTs would appreciate in value.

  • July 02, 2024

    Judge Expedites Briefing For Consensys SEC Challenge

    Crypto firm Consensys' preemptive case against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is set to move forward on an expedited basis after a Texas federal judge allowed the parties to brief any potential bids from the regulator to toss the case at the same time as Consensys' motion for a judgment in its favor.

  • July 02, 2024

    Prosecutors Rest In Chinese Exile's $1B Fraud Trial

    Manhattan federal prosecutors on Tuesday concluded their case-in-chief in the $1 billion fraud trial of Chinese dissident Miles Guo, and the defense team began putting on its own witnesses to rebut the charges that the businessman convinced his followers to invest in sham companies.

  • July 02, 2024

    Even If There's A Better Reading, Follow Arbitrator, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit has affirmed an arbitration award requiring two venture capital funds to dissolve in a suit alleging the funds' general partners breached their fiduciary duty, saying "even if there is a better interpretation, the arbitrator's interpretation controls, 'however good, bad, or ugly.'"

  • July 02, 2024

    Harvest Capital Class Ends Chancery Merger Suit For $3.85M

    Stockholder attorneys who secured a $3.85 million pretrial class settlement for an allegedly unfair Harvest Capital Credit Corp. merger deal won an above-average 25% share of the award Tuesday, in what a Delaware vice chancellor indicated was a move to reward top-flight attention to smaller-stakes litigation.

  • July 02, 2024

    Pharma Co. Scores Exit In Investor Suit Over Primate Imports

    A Massachusetts federal judge tossed every claim in a proposed class action claiming that pharmaceutical company Charles River Laboratories and its executives concealed their involvement in the illegal importation of nonhuman primates for research, ruling that the disputed statements are not false or misleading.

  • July 02, 2024

    Levi & Korsinsky Appointed Lead In Instacart Pre-IPO Action

    Levi & Korsinsky LLP has been appointed lead counsel for the investors in a suit alleging the grocery delivery company Instacart misrepresented its growth potential in the lead-up to its initial public offering.

  • July 02, 2024

    Chancery Cuts Sears Shareholders' $18.3M Award To $8.7M

    Minority stockholders of Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores saw their class award in Delaware Chancery Court litigation trimmed from $18.3 million to $8.7 million Tuesday after former Sears CEO Edward S. Lampert and his co-defendants protested that the court had erred in its calculations.

Expert Analysis

  • Advisers Can Avoid Gaps In SEC Marketing Rule Compliance

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    A recent risk alert from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the enforcement history of the marketing rule indicate that advisers have encountered persistent difficulties in achieving compliance — but there are steps advisers can take to mitigate risks of violations, say Scott Moss and Jimmy Kang at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: June Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy considers two recent decisions from the Third and Tenth Circuits, and identifies practice tips around class action settlements and standing in securities litigation.

  • Unpacking The Circuit Split Over A Federal Atty Fee Rule

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    Federal circuit courts that have addressed Rule 41(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are split as to whether attorney fees are included as part of the costs of a previously dismissed action, so practitioners aiming to recover or avoid fees should tailor arguments to the appropriate court, says Joseph Myles and Lionel Lavenue at Finnegan.

  • Arbitration Implications Of High Court Coinbase Ruling

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent Coinbase v. Suski ruling not only reaffirmed the long-standing principle that arbitration is a matter of contract, but also established new and more general principles concerning the courts' jurisdiction to decide challenges to delegation clauses and the severability rule, say Tamar Meshel at the University of Alberta.

  • Banks As Crypto Custodians May Rest On SEC Bulletin's Fate

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    Banks' willingness to accept custody of cryptocurrency assets, like the exchange-traded funds approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this spring, may hinge on whether a 2022 SEC accounting bulletin directing banks to track customers' digital assets on their balance sheets can survive Congress' attempts to strike it down, says Roger Chari at Duane Morris.

  • After A Brief Hiccup, The 'Rocket Docket' Soars Back To No. 1

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    The Eastern District of Virginia’s precipitous 2022 fall from its storied rocket docket status appears to have been a temporary aberration, as recent statistics reveal that the court is once again back on top as the fastest federal civil trial court in the nation, says Robert Tata at Hunton.

  • Takeaways From Regulators' £61.6M Citigroup Trading Fine

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    Following the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority’s recent significant fining of Citigroup for its catastrophic trading error, and with more enforcement likely, institutions should update their controls and ensure system warnings do not become routine and therefore disregarded, says Abdulali Jiwaji at Signature Litigation.

  • Big Banks Face Potential Broader Recovery Plan Rules

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    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recent call for potentially subjecting more banks to recovery planning standards would represent a significant expansion of the scope of the recovery guidelines, and banks that would be affected should assess whether they’re prepared, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Practical Private Equity Lessons From 2 Delaware Deals

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    A pair of Delaware Chancery Court cases remind private equity sponsors that specificity is crucial through the lens of deal certainty, particularly around closing conditions and agreement sections of acquisition agreements, say Robert Rizzo and Larissa Lucas at Weil Gotshal and William Lafferty at Morris Nichols.

  • New Laws, Regs Mean More Scrutiny Of Airline Carbon Claims

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    Recent climate disclosure laws and regulations in the U.S. and Europe mean that scrutiny of airlines' green claims will likely continue to intensify — so carriers must make sure their efforts to reduce carbon emissions through use of sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen and carbon offsets measure up to their marketing, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Recruitment Trends In Emerging Law Firm Frontiers

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    BigLaw firms are facing local recruitment challenges as they increasingly establish offices in cities outside of the major legal hubs, requiring them to weigh various strategies for attracting talent that present different risks and benefits, says Tom Hanlon at Buchanan Law.

  • 4 Tips For Drafting Earnouts To Avoid Disputes

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    Amid slowed merger and acquisition activity, buyers and sellers are increasingly turning to earnout provisions to get deals done, but these must be carefully drafted to avoid interpretative differences that can lead to later disputes, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • Series

    Glassblowing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    I never expected that glassblowing would strongly influence my work as an attorney, but it has taught me the importance of building a solid foundation for your work, learning from others and committing to a lifetime of practice, says Margaret House at Kalijarvi Chuzi.

  • What DOL Fiduciary Rule Means For Private Fund Managers

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    Attorneys at Ropes & Gray discuss how the U.S. Department of Labor's recently released final fiduciary rule, which revises the agency's 1975 regulation, could potentially cause private fund managers' current marketing practices and communications to be considered fiduciary advice, and therefore subject them to strict prohibitions.

  • Best Practices For Chemical Transparency In Supply Chains

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    A flurry of new and forthcoming regulations in different jurisdictions that require disclosure of potentially hazardous substances used in companies' products and processes will require businesses to take proactive steps to build chemical transparency into their supply chains, and engage robustly and systematically with vendors, says Jillian Stacy at Enhesa.

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