PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Raising Capital 101: A Securities Podcast - What Makes it a Securities Offering?
All Things Investigations: Anchored in Fraud: Mike DeBernardis and Shayda Vance on Austal USA’s Scandal
The Legal Tightrope: Surviving Parallel Investigations
Navigating Government Contracts: Diana Shaw on Oversight and Whistleblower Protections
From Court to Code: Smart Contracts and Arbitration
Episode 335 -- The New DOJ Whistleblower Program
Navigating Emerging Privacy Issues in Financial Services — The Consumer Finance Podcast
Implications of the SEC Cybersecurity Disclosure Rule
Corruption, Crime and Compliance: SEC Suffers Dismissal of Claims in Solarwinds Securities Fraud Case
Episode 334 -- District Court Dismisses Bulk of SEC Claims Against Solarwinds
The Woody Report: The Solar Winds Dismissal
In That Case: Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy
Corruption, Crime and Compliance: Deep Dive into The SEC’s Settlement with R&R Donnelly on Cybersecurity Controls
Episode 332 -- Deep Dive into SEC’s Internal Controls and Cybersecurity Settlement with R&R Donnelly
The Justice Insiders Podcast: Jarkesy’s Implications for the Administrative State
DE Under 3: OFCCP Must Shut Down its Administrative Court Prosecutions as a Result of SCOTUS’ SEC Jury Trial Case Decision
Dogecoin’s Day in Court
Unpacking the Lummis-Gillibrand Payment Stablecoin Act: Implications for the Digital Asset Industry — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Podcast: Is Cryptocurrency a Security (like an orange grove)?
Navigating the Regulatory Waters: The SEC's Wells Notice to Uniswap and its Impact on DeFi — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
AGG’s Government Investigations Team Insights provides periodic updates covering legal and regulatory topics. Our team, which includes former federal prosecutors, SEC enforcement attorneys, and federal agency attorneys, has...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided SEC v. Jarkesy. That decision held that individuals subject to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) enforcement actions in which the SEC seeks civil penalties for...more
On June 27, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in SEC v. Jarkesy, holding that the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) must prosecute securities fraud before a federal court whenever it...more
Since 1972, the SEC has prohibited defendants who settle civil enforcement actions with the SEC without admitting or denying wrongdoing from later publicly “denying the allegations in the complaint” filed against them. The...more
2023 was another groundbreaking year for whistleblower litigation and bounty awards. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shattered records by issuing a $279 million award and continued to actively enforce the...more
The same day that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) in SEC v. Ripple Labs, Inc. denied the SEC's request for an interlocutory appeal of the bombshell summary judgment ruling in the case, the...more
On December 1, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated and remanded a district court’s decision to certify a class of more than 200,000 retirees alleging that collateralized loans serviced by the...more
In a scathing opinion, Southern District of New York Judge Ronnie Abrams recently blasted the SEC’s standard demand that defendants settling with the Commission agree never to deny the allegations against them. Judge Abrams’...more
As has been widely reported, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this week addressed the legal status of the administrative courts of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In short, the Court held...more
Last week, Holland & Knight's experienced Corporate, M&A and Securities Team dove into the details of the SEC's recent rule proposal covering enhanced disclosures for SPACs and de-SPAC transactions. As detailed in the post,...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in SEC v. Panuwat, a case we discussed in a previous blog as having significant repercussions for insider trading enforcement in fiscal year (FY) 2022, just...more
SCOTUS Grants Certiorari to Decide Whether Automatic Discovery Stay Applies to Securities Act Cases in State Court; Delaware Court of Chancery Dismisses Stockholder Suit Against FedEx for Failure to Make Pre-Litigation...more
Federal Reserve Hints at Government-Backed Cryptocurrency; Third Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Securities Fraud Class Action Against Shutterfly Inc. Regarding Allegedly Misleading Financial Projections; Ninth Circuit Holds...more
Though he was apparently ready to go with his “verbal agreement with the Saudis” defense, Elon Musk capitulated to pressure “from his lawyers and investors of Tesla” and agreed to resolve all SEC allegations of wrongdoing,...more
The remedies the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) can seek in its enforcement actions are a critical question in the wake of the Kokesh v. SEC, 137 S.Ct. 1635 (2017) and SEC v. Cohen, Civil Action No. 17-cv-430...more
Amendments to the Rules of Practice Do Little to Address Criticism that the Deck is Stacked - Facing pressure from industry practitioners and in the wake of constitutional challenges in multiple jurisdictions, the...more
For years, companies have battled different sanction standards for the failure to preserve documents. This led to over-preservation, where, to avoid accusations of “negligent” failure, companies preserved every shred of...more
SEC proposes modest amendments to AP process to enhance efficiency and address concerns regarding fairness. In an effort to enhance the efficiency of its processes in administrative proceedings (APs) and bolster its...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission appears to be hearing the music. In response to the many voices that have expressed dissatisfaction with the procedures used in SEC administrative hearings, the SEC today issued proposed...more
For the past two years, the SEC has come under heavy fire, both inside and outside the Commission, for its increasing use of its own administrative proceedings, rather than federal courts, as the preferred forum for bringing...more
The SEC was granted authority in the Dodd-Frank Act to initiate administrative proceedings against non-regulated persons. In those proceedings the full range of remedies are available – a cease-and-desist order, disgorgement,...more
The SEC’s plan to bring more enforcement actions as administrative proceedings before its own administrative law judges rather than in the federal district courts — even in insider trading cases — has been drawing increasing...more
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Verfuerth v. Orion Energy Systems, Inc., No. 14-cv-352 (E.D. Wis. Nov. 4, 2014) recently ruled that the Dodd-Frank whistleblower protection provision does not...more
Several years ago, I testified as an expert witness in an administrative proceeding brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The hearing was held in what looked like a courtroom before what appeared to be a judge...more