Earlier this week at a talk before the Council of Institutional Investors, U.S. Securities and Exchange (“SEC”) Commissioner, Caroline Crenshaw, argued that the enforcement must play a “central role” with regulators and...more
The New Year is still young, but major changes are already afoot in securities enforcement as Congress amended the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) on January 1, 2021. It was easy to miss these changes to the...more
2/4/2021
/ Amended Regulation ,
Disgorgement ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Government Investigations ,
Kokesh v SEC ,
Liu v Securities and Exchange Commission ,
NDAA ,
Penalties ,
Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ,
Securities Regulation ,
Securities Violations
Last year, we reviewed the Second Circuit decision in United States v. Blaszczak, which made it easier to prosecute trading on inside information. A divided panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend the...more
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“DHHS OIG”) recently issued a Special Fraud Alert regarding fraud and abuse concerns related to speaker programs offered by pharmaceutical and medical...more
1/12/2021
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Fraud Alerts ,
Fraud and Abuse ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Fraud ,
Life Sciences ,
Medical Devices ,
OIG ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Speaker Programs ,
Stark Law
Over the last several years, antitrust prosecutors at the Department of Justice have repeatedly cautioned that anticompetitive agreements affecting labor markets can be the subject of criminal prosecution under the antitrust...more
12/18/2020
/ Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Investigations ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Wage-Fixing
Late last month, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York pushed for a heavy prison sentence against one of the founders of Centra Tech, Inc. (“Centra Tech”). As discussed earlier this year on the BitBlog,...more
12/2/2020
/ Celebrity Endorsements ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Debit and Credit Card Transactions ,
Digital Currency ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Influencers ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Securities Violations ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities
Late last month, SoluTech, Inc. and Nathan Pitruzello consented to a cease-and-desist order with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). From April 2018 through March 2019, SoluTech, a technology start-up...more
10/9/2020
/ Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Currency ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Transactions ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities
The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a civil forfeiture complaint detailing two hacks of virtual currency exchanges by North Korean actors. These actors stole millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency or other...more
9/16/2020
/ Blockchain ,
Civil Forfeiture ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Data Breach ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Crimes ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinTech ,
Foreign Exchanges ,
Hackers ,
Money Laundering ,
North Korea ,
Virtual Currency
Joseph Frank Abel recently pled guilty to conspiring to offer and sell unregistered securities and to filing a false tax return in connection with his role in the BitClub Network, a cryptocurrency mining scheme worth at least...more
9/15/2020
/ Bitcoin ,
Bitcoin Mining ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Currency ,
Government Investigations ,
Guilty Pleas ,
Indictments ,
Investment Fraud ,
Securities Violations ,
Tax Fraud ,
Unregistered Securities
The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a civil forfeiture complaint detailing two hacks of virtual currency exchanges by North Korean actors. These actors stole millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency and...more
9/15/2020
/ Civil Forfeiture ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Data Breach ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Crimes ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinTech ,
Foreign Exchanges ,
Hackers ,
Money Laundering ,
North Korea ,
Virtual Currency
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged two promoters for acting as unregistered brokers. The SEC action was filed in tandem with a criminal indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice against the same...more
Earlier this month, a superseding indictment was unsealed in the Southern District of New York, charging Pablo Rodriguez, Gutemberg Dos Santos, Scott Hughes, Cecilia Milan, and Jackie Aguilar for their roles in a...more
On August 14, 2020, the Department of Justice issued a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) Advisory Opinion—the first of its kind in nearly six years. The DOJ’s opinion advised a U.S. investment company that the...more
In Philip K. Dick’s novel Ubik, the sci-fi legend warned the world of the dangers of inanimate objects that could violate our privacy. In a virtual nod to Ubik and Dick, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the privacy...more
Faced with the novel question of whether an individual has a Fourth Amendment privacy interest in the records of their Bitcoin transactions, the Fifth Circuit found that Bitcoin data is akin to bank records and not subject to...more
7/10/2020
/ Bitcoin ,
Child Pornography ,
Coinbase ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Digital Currency ,
Financial Transactions ,
Fourth Amendment ,
Money Transfer ,
Online Platforms ,
Popular ,
Reasonable Expectation of Privacy ,
Search Warrant ,
Third-Party
Last week, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) updated its Manual on Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (“June 2020 Guidance”), which is intended to aid prosecutors in making corporate charging decisions. Initially...more
Recently, the United States Supreme Court added United States v. Van Buren to its merits docket for next term. The Court will seek to resolve a circuit-split over whether a person who is authorized to access information on a...more
Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the money laundering convictions of Thomas Costanzo, a bitcoin broker. According to Costanzo, the bitcoin transfers at issue, which originated from and were...more
4/25/2020
/ Asset Transfer ,
Bitcoin ,
Blockchain ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Currency ,
Digital Wallets ,
Federal Jurisdiction ,
Financial Transactions ,
Interstate Commerce ,
Money Laundering ,
Peer-to-Peer ,
Popular ,
Virtual Currency
Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion enabling state prosecutors to use information found in federal I-9 documents when prosecuting unauthorized immigrants for identity theft....more
3/29/2020
/ Criminal Convictions ,
Form I-9 ,
Identity Theft ,
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) ,
Kansas v Garcia ,
KS Supreme Court ,
Preemption ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
State Law Claims ,
Undocumented Immigrants
Recently, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut issued its order in United States v. Hoskins, vacating a jury’s November 2019 conviction of a foreign entity’s executive for violating the Foreign...more
On December 30, 2019 the Second Circuit issued its opinion in United States v. Blaszczak, finding that the government can criminally prosecute insider trading under 18 U.S.C. 1348 without proving personal benefit to the...more
1/9/2020
/ Appeals ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Criminal Liability ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Defense Strategies ,
Federal Prosecutors ,
Illegal Tipping ,
Insider Trading ,
Non-Public Information ,
Personal Benefit ,
Rule 10(b) ,
Rule 10b-5 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Securities Fraud
With the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) giving increased attention to Foreign Agent Registration Act (“FARA”) enforcement, companies that have international business operations or otherwise deal with foreign governments and...more
12/17/2019
/ Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Exemptions ,
Foreign Agents ,
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) ,
Foreign Corporations ,
Foreign Governments ,
Foreign Nationals ,
Government Investigations ,
Legal Representatives ,
Lobbying ,
Lobbying Disclosure Act ,
National Security ,
Registration Requirement ,
Reporting Requirements
Earlier this year, the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division publicly confirmed the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) intention to make Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) a criminal enforcement...more