On August 28, 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a settled enforcement action against Impact Theory LLC (Impact Theory) for the unregistered sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that the SEC determined...more
On September 27, 2022, 15 broker-dealers and one investment adviser agreed to pay more than $1.8 billion in total civil penalties to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and, for those same companies or affiliates...more
10/5/2022
/ Broker-Dealer ,
CFTC ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Electronic Communications ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs) ,
Investment Adviser ,
New Guidance ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Swap Dealers ,
Swaps ,
Text Messages
On June 30, 2022 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought a settled enforcement case against a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) and a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA). At first glance, the case appears...more
9/9/2022
/ Aiding and Abetting ,
Chief Compliance Officers ,
Compliance ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Corporate Officers ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Failure To Disclose ,
Personal Liability ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Registered Investment Advisors ,
Securities Violations
On July 21, 2022, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment charging Ishan Wahi (Wahi), a former product manager at a large cryptocurrency trading platform (the Platform) - along with his brother Nikhil Wahi...more
7/28/2022
/ Conspiracies ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Marketplace ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Howey ,
Indictments ,
Insider Trading ,
Popular ,
Rule 10b-5 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Wire Fraud
Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R- WY) introduced new proposed legislation on June 7, 2022, which would classify the vast majority of digital assets as commodities, and empower the Commodities Futures...more
6/14/2022
/ CFTC ,
Commodities ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Cybersecurity ,
Digital Assets ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
FERC ,
FinTech ,
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) ,
Investment Contract ,
NIST ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
As investors have piled into ESG-friendly mutual funds over the past several years, the SEC has begun ratcheting up scrutiny of the representations made by the advisers of those ESG investment funds. This week, the SEC...more
5/26/2022
/ Climate Change ,
Corporate Governance ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ,
Greenwashing ,
Investment Funds ,
Mutual Funds ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
UK
Two recent decisions have put the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) in-house administrative proceedings in the crosshairs. First, on May 16, 2022, the US Supreme Court agreed to consider whether Administrative Law...more
On May 2, 2022, a putative class action was filed against a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and its members seeking to recover $55 million in cryptocurrency losses stolen during a hack into the DAO’s decentralized...more
On May 3, 2022, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the expansion of its newly styled Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (Unit) (formerly known as the Cyber Unit), housed within its Division of...more
5/10/2022
/ Bitcoin ,
Blockchain ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ,
Enforcement Authority ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Howey ,
Lenders ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Working Groups
On April 13, 2022, the Texas State Securities Board and Alabama Securities Commission issued separate emergency cease and desist orders (C&Ds) against Sand Vegas Casino Club and its two co-founders (Respondents). The C&Ds...more
4/27/2022
/ Casinos ,
Cease and Desist Orders ,
Digital Assets ,
Fraud ,
Howey ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Securities Regulation ,
State Securities Regulators
In an Executive Order (EO) issued March 9, 2022, President Joseph Biden set out the guiding principles for US policy on digital assets and digital asset regulation, including US policy with respect to a US Central Bank...more
There is no love lost between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the crypto industry with tensions escalating over the past year. So it seems fitting that on Valentine’s Day, the SEC brought a...more
The SEC’s Division of Enforcement is likely to be active in 2020, investigating several issues important to broker-dealers and investment advisers.
In this Bottom Line videocast, Brian Rubin and Adam Pollet discuss:
Cash...more
2/18/2020
/ 403(b) Plans ,
457(b) Plans ,
Asset Management ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Firms ,
Investment Funds ,
Regulation Best Interest ,
Retirement Plan ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
On March 29, 2018, the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (the CFP Board) adopted a revised Code of Ethics (the Code) and Standards of Conduct (the Standards) that require a certified financial planner (CFP)...more
On July 9, 2019, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its latest Enforcement annual performance report for the year 2018/19. This follows the publication of its final FCA Mission: Approach to...more
7/26/2019
/ Compliance ,
Corporate Investigations ,
Enforcement ,
Enforcement Statistics ,
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Hong Kong ,
Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (HKSFC) ,
Information Reports ,
OCIE ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
UK
In October 2005, we wrote an article titled “Cooperation, Only More So: What It Takes to Receive Credit for Cooperating with NASD.” The title came from a line in the movie Casablanca. In it, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is asked...more
For those longing for the heady days of the cryptocurrency free-for-all, this November is proving to be the start of the winter of your discontent.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the US Securities and...more
12/6/2018
/ Blockchain ,
CFTC ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Cybersecurity ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Popular ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Securities ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Smart Contracts ,
Token Sales
Two important events occurred in the cryptocurrency space last week. The Chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) gave a speech regarding regulators’ role in effectively supervising markets in the era...more
11/14/2018
/ Blockchain ,
CFTC ,
Commodities ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Securities ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Last week, on September 11, 2018, a number of “firsts” occurred in the prosecution of cryptocurrency-related activities. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought its first-ever enforcement action involving a...more
On July 26, 2018, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) denied an application for the Winklevoss brothers—of Facebook fame (and fortune)—to launch the first bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would allow...more
In 2017, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ordered more than two times the restitution from the prior year, resulting in the fourth highest total of sanctions (fines combined with restitution and...more
On December 13, 2017, a New Jersey federal judge dismissed the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) civil action against the owner of a broker-dealer for his alleged involvement in a $17 million pump-and-dump penny...more
With the US poised to decrease regulation and the outcome of Brexit unknown, multinational institutions face a great deal of unpredictability in the regulatory landscape. In this edition of Partnering Perspectives, we look at...more
On August 8, 2017, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit unanimously upheld the first-ever criminal conviction of a New Jersey futures trader for the manipulative trading practice known as...more
8/14/2017
/ Appeals ,
Commodities ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Criminal Convictions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
High Frequency Trading ,
Indictments ,
Market Manipulation ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Spoofing
On April 18, 2017, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Kokesh v. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding whether disgorgement ordered by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is subject to the...more