On June 27, 2024, in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, the Supreme Court held that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC or the Commission) administrative process for adjudicating fraud-based enforcement...more
7/19/2024
/ Administrative Authority ,
Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Administrative Proceedings ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Jury Trial ,
SCOTUS ,
SEC v Jarkesy ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Securities Regulation ,
Seventh Amendment
In a significant recent decision, Securities and Exchange Commission v. Govil, the Second Circuit substantially narrowed the scope of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) disgorgement powers to cases in which the...more
On March 30, federal regulators announced that Wells Fargo Bank had entered into settlements in which it agreed to pay $97.8 million in fines for enabling sanctions violations between 2010 and 2015. In two separate...more
Eager to enlist corporations as “allies in [its] fight against crime,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, expansions to the Criminal Division’s corporate enforcement policy, now the Criminal...more
On Dec. 5, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that AT&T has agreed to a $6.25 million penalty, resolving charges brought against it under the securities rule known as Regulation Fair Disclosure (Regulation...more
On Aug. 12, 2022, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an important decision regarding the scope of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act’s (FCPA) application to non-U.S. citizens who are employed by foreign...more
In their March 3, 2022, speeches to the 37th American Bar Association (ABA) National Institute on White Collar Crime, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. both emphasized the...more
Over the course of the year — and even dating back to his time on the campaign trail — President Biden and senior officials in his administration, including Department of Justice (DOJ) and Security and Exchange Commission...more
12/21/2021
/ Anti-Corruption ,
Biden Administration ,
Bribery ,
Compliance ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Corporate Governance ,
Corruption ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Popular ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
White Collar Crimes
On Dec. 13, 2021, an en banc panel of the Fifth Circuit held that the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) does not preclude federal district courts from exercising subject matter jurisdiction over constitutional...more
In a recent speech at the Practising Law Institute’s annual SEC Speaks conference, Gurbir Grewal, the new director of the Division of Enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission), signaled...more
On Oct. 6, 2021, Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco announced the creation of a Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative (the Initiative). According to the announcement, the Initiative combines the DOJ’s...more
On Sept. 27, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the most recent legal challenge to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) practice of using “no-deny” consent agreements to resolve civil...more
On Sept. 14, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) entered a cease-and-desist order against App Annie Inc. and its co-founder and former CEO, Bertrand Schmitt, after agreeing to settle securities fraud claims....more
Demonstrating its continued focus on cybersecurity enforcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced three new actions on Aug. 30 charging eight firms with maintaining deficient cybersecurity policies and...more
Securities fraud litigation based on regulatory mishaps, environmental disasters, data breaches, sexual harassment revelations, the COVID-19 pandemic and other well-publicized events that affect stock prices has been on the...more
9/3/2021
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Class Action ,
Duty to Disclose ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Pleading Requirements ,
Financial Statements ,
Material Misstatements ,
Money Laundering ,
Puffery ,
Securities Fraud ,
Shareholder Litigation ,
Stock Drop Litigation
On July 13, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced partially settled charges against the Special Purpose Acquisition Company Stable Road Acquisition Co. (SRA), SRA’s sponsor and CEO, SRA’s target Momentus Inc....more
On June 14, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a $490,000 settlement with the real estate services provider First American Financial Corporation (First American) for violations of disclosure controls and...more
On March 5, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it had charged AT&T and three of its midlevel investor relations executives with violating Regulation FD, a rule that bars issuers from selectively...more
Introduction -
On Feb. 2, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a cease-and-desist order settling charges against the former CEO and CFO of WageWorks Inc. (WageWorks, or the Company), stemming from the...more
2/22/2021
/ Cease and Desist Orders ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Executive Compensation ,
Financial Statements ,
Incentive Compensation ,
Reimbursements ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Section 304 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations
Three years ago, in a footnote to its unanimous opinion in Kokesh v. S.E.C., the Supreme Court left open two questions: “whether courts possess authority to order disgorgement in SEC enforcement proceedings” and “whether...more
In its 2011 Janus decision, the Supreme Court emphasized that SEC Rule 10b-5 imposes liability for a false statement in connection with a securities transaction only on the “maker” of the statement, the “person or entity with...more
4/3/2019
/ Appeals ,
Enforcement Actions ,
False Statements ,
Fines ,
Intent to Defraud ,
Investment Banks ,
Lorenzo v SEC ,
Material Dissemination ,
Misleading Statements ,
Reaffirmation ,
Rule 10b-5 ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Suspensions
In a speech delivered on Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein described important changes to DOJ policies for awarding cooperation credit in corporate investigations. These changes have been...more
12/4/2018
/ Cooperation Agreement ,
Corporate Investigations ,
Corruption ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Government Investigations ,
Individual Accountability ,
Policy Statement ,
White Collar Crimes ,
Willful Misconduct ,
Yates Memorandum
On June 21, 2018, the Supreme Court in Raymond J. Lucia, et al. v. SEC, held that the SEC’s administrative law judges are “Officers of the United States” whose appointment must comport with the requirements of the...more
6/29/2018
/ Administrative Agencies ,
Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Administrative Proceedings ,
Appeals ,
Appointments Clause ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Final Written Decisions ,
Lucia v SEC ,
Officers of the United States ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Special Trial Judges (STJs)
On March 1, 2018, John P. Cronan, the acting head of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, and Benjamin Singer, Chief of the Fraud Section’s Securities and Financial Fraud Unit, announced at the American Bar...more
On June 26, 2017, the D.C. Circuit, en banc, split 5-to-5 on whether to grant a petition seeking to overturn an August 2016 ruling by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit that determined that SEC administrative law judges...more