A California Court recently allowed the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC” or “Commission”) to proceed with its first insider trading prosecution based on a theory of “shadow trading.” On January 14, 2022, Judge...more
2/11/2022
/ Confidential Information ,
Due Process ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Insider Trading ,
Material Nonpublic Information ,
Materiality ,
Misappropriation ,
Rule 10b-5 ,
Scienter ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Securities Violations
A key question for any company considering the issuance of cryptocurrency is whether that digital asset will be treated by regulators as a security, like BP stock, or a commodity, like Bitcoin. In 2019, the Securities and...more
2/4/2022
/ Aiding and Abetting ,
Blockchain ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
FinTech ,
Howey ,
Investment Contract ,
Popular ,
Securities ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Unregistered Securities ,
Virtual Currency
In 2021, there were 613 initial public offerings (“IPOs”) of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”), after 248 SPACs went public in 2020 and 59 in 2019. Prior to 2021, there had not been more than 500 IPOs of any...more
On November 18, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) released its Enforcement Results for fiscal year (“FY”) 2021, which spans from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021. The Commission published...more
When it comes to settlements with the SEC’s Division of Enforcement (“Enforcement Division”), a question respondents often ask is how the SEC arrives at a given penalty amount? This blog post will discuss the SEC’s current...more
Last month, we wrote about three actions taken by the SEC signaling a renewed interest in cybersecurity disclosure enforcement. In keeping with this theme, the SEC announced a number of significant new cybersecurity actions...more
The SEC is ramping up its cybersecurity disclosure enforcement. While the agency had made significant efforts relating to cybersecurity disclosure previously, there has been surprisingly little SEC activity in this area...more