Constitutional Law › Criminal Law › Finance & Banking

Supreme Court Settles Fifth Amendment Required Records Issue in Context of Offshore Bank Accounts

On May 13, 2013, the Supreme Court denied a taxpayer’s petition for certiorari regarding the Seventh Circuit’s August 27, 2012, decision applying the Required Records Exception to override the taxpayer’s Fifth Amendment...more

Eleventh Circuit Holds that Production of Foreign Bank Account Records May be Compelled in Criminal Investigation Under Required...

The Eleventh Circuit recently joined the Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits in holding that subpoenaed foreign financial records properly fall within the Required Records Exception to the Fifth Amendment privilege against...more

White Collar Watch - March 2013

In This Issue: - Eleventh Circuit Holds that Production of Foreign Bank Account Records May be Compelled in Criminal Investigation Under Required Records Exception to Fifth Amendment Privilege - Supreme Court...more

Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Sustains Required Records Exception to the Fifth Amendment

On February 7, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia holding that the Required Records Exception overrides a...more

Credit Crunch Digest -- February 2013

This issue of the Credit Crunch Digest focuses on fines against Royal Bank of Scotland for alleged Libor rate rigging; the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Standard & Poors; developments in a mortgage-backed securities...more

Fourth Circuit Affirms Finding of No Fifth Amendment Violation in Connection with 45-Year Conviction for $100 Million Investment...

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently affirmed a defendant’s conviction and 45-year sentence, holding that the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights had not been violated where the government simply had limited...more

Grassley: HSBC Should Face Criminal Charges [Video]

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg Law) -- United States Senator Charles Grassley (R - Iowa) and Bloomberg Contributing Editor Neil Barofsky talk with Bloomberg Law's Lee Pacchia about HSBC's recent settlement with US authorities over claims...more

State Treasurer and Chairman of the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission Letter to Sen. Reid & Sen Kyl Objecting to Draft...

Below is a complete text-version of the attached -- Mass. Treasurer Steven Grossman's Letter to Sen. Reid and Sen. Kyl objecting to the Draft iGaming Prohibition Bill expected to be dropped during the Lame Duck session of...more

Borrowing Money From A Foreign Government May Make You A Subversive Organization In California

In 1941, Robert Noble, Ellis O. Jones and several other individuals were indicted for violating California’s Subversive Organization Registration Law. The defendants were active in a pro-German group called the Friends of...more

Court Declares Bank Trash Talk Statute Facially Unconstitutional

In my October 2010 post “Don’t Talk Trash About A California Bank“, I discussed Financial Code Section 756 (subsequently reenacted verbatim as Section 1327). That statute generally criminalizes spreading false rumors about a...more

Jurors Behaving Badly

A closely watched white-collar criminal case poses an interesting question in a challenging context: just how egregious do a juror’s lies during jury selection have to be in order to warrant a new trial? United States v....more

$499 Bankruptcy – Is that for real????

$499 Bankruptcy – Is that for real???? $499, $899, low price, or free bankruptcy advice were a few of the advertisements I saw while searching bankruptcy terms today on Google. Most of these ads were appearing in the Google...more

What’s included in the attorney fees I’m paying?

What’s included in the attorney fees I’m paying? What are you paying for when you hire an attorney? You are paying for the attorney’s time, expertise and for service to start with. Almost all of my cases are handled on a...more

US v. Elie et. al.

Motion to Dismiss Indictment Counts 5 thru 7 & 9

This case concerns the government’s flawed attempt to expand the Illegal Gambling Business Act (“IGBA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1955 (2010), to cover foreign businesses that offered customers the opportunity to...more

US v. Elie et. al.

Motion to Dismiss Indictment Count 8

Count EIGHT of the Superseding Indictment (“Indictment”) purports to charge defendant Chad Elie (along with defendants Scheinberg, Bitar, Beckley, Burtnick, Tate, Lang, Franzen, and Rubin, but not defendants...more

US v. Elie et. al.

Motion to Dismiss Indictment Counts 1 thru 4

Chad Elie stands indicted along with ten other individuals in a nine count Superseding Indictment (“Indictment”). The Indictment contains five charges: (1) conspiracy to violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling...more

US v. Campos et. al.

Motion to Dismiss Indictment

John Campos, who was the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of a Utah bank that processed financial transactions for online poker players, is charged with conspiracy to violate and violations of the Unlawful Internet...more

No Fifth Amendment Privilege For Offshore Banking Records

Under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a taxpayer may refuse to answer specific questions or produce specific records if it would violate his or her privilege against self-incrimination. In a recent appellate...more

Financial Institution Facing New Lawsuit For Offshoring Call And Data Center Services

The offshore outsourcing of customer service call center and data center services to locations outside of the U.S. has become a fairly standard business practice in many industries. Now, a consumer class action lawsuit filed...more

Supreme Court Curtails Reach of Honest Services Fraud and Affirms Juror Bias Metric

On June 24, 2010, the Supreme Court released its much anticipated decision in the prosecution of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, sharply curtailing the scope of the federal “honest services” fraud statute. The statute,...more