On May 12, 2025, the DOJ announced a new “white-collar enforcement plan” identifying new corporate enforcement priorities and aiming to promote greater focus, fairness and efficiency in prosecuting corporate misconduct. In a...more
On March 20, 2025, the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland jointly announced the formation of a new International Anti-Corruption Prosecutorial Taskforce (the “Task Force”) aimed at strengthening cross-border collaboration...more
5/13/2025
/ Anti-Corruption ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Executive Orders ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
France ,
Government Agencies ,
Switzerland ,
UK
On February 25, 2025, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released an enforcement advisory regarding the impact of self-reporting, cooperation and remediation in enforcement cases (the “Enforcement...more
Both the CFTC and SEC have new Acting Chairs, who are known to be crypto advocates, with Mark Uyeda being appointed Acting Chair of the SEC, taking over from Gary Gensler, while Caroline D. Pham has assumed the role of Acting...more
2/12/2025
/ Administrative Appointments ,
Bitcoin ,
CFTC ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Trump Administration
UPDATE: President Signs Executive Order Directing DOJ to Pause All FCPA Enforcement for 180 Days - On February 10, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order directing the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to pause all...more
On January 13, 2025, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced settled enforcement actions with five registered investment advisers for failing to maintain and preserve internal electronic communications. These...more
1/20/2025
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Cease and Desist Orders ,
Compliance ,
Electronic Communications ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Investment Advisers Act of 1940 ,
Penalties ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Remedial Actions ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Securities Regulation ,
Settlement ,
WhatsApp
CryptoLink is a compilation of news stories published by outside organizations. Akin aggregates the stories, but the information contained in them does not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of the firm. Akin's...more
1/14/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Bitcoin ,
Blockchain ,
CFTC ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Currency ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinCEN ,
FinTech ,
Fraud ,
Investment ,
NVIDIA ,
Regulation S-K ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Russia ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Stablecoins ,
UK
CryptoLink is a compilation of news stories published by outside organizations. Akin aggregates the stories, but the information contained in them does not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of the firm. Akin's...more
8/16/2024
/ Bitcoin ,
Bitcoin Mining ,
CFTC ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Disgorgement ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ,
Fraud ,
Individual Retirement Account (IRA) ,
Penalties ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Settlement ,
UK
On April 12, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission imposed fines and other sanctions on five registered investment advisers (RIAs) for violations of the Investment Adviser Marketing Rule (Rule 206(4)-1), which has...more
On Friday, April 5, 2024, a San Francisco jury found the defendant liable in SEC v. Panuwat, the closely watched litigated enforcement action brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to so-called...more
On April 3, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced its first enforcement action against a registered investment adviser (RIA) with no ties to a broker-dealer regarding so-called “off-channel”...more
4/10/2024
/ Broker-Dealer ,
Electronic Communications ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fund Managers ,
Investigations ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Management ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Registered Investment Advisors ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Regulation ,
Securities Violations
CryptoLink is a compilation of news stories published by outside organizations. Akin aggregates the stories, but the information contained in them does not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of the firm. Akin's...more
3/20/2024
/ Banking Regulators ,
Bitcoin ,
CFTC ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Currency ,
Enforcement Actions ,
ETFs ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Fraud ,
Investors ,
Legislative Agendas ,
OECD ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Pyramid Schemes ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Litigation ,
Stablecoins ,
Tokenization ,
Wire Fraud
On the one hand, the year ended where it began. The legislation on stabelecoins and market structure that would provide a regulatory framework for digital assets has still not been enacted into law. And Securities and...more
1/19/2024
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Bitcoin ,
CFTC ,
Class Action ,
Coinbase ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Enforcement Actions ,
ETFs ,
Fraud ,
Money Transmitter ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Ponzi Scheme ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Tokens ,
Summary Judgment ,
Terrorism Funding ,
U.S. Treasury ,
Virtual Currency
Key Takeaways -
With the SolarWinds enforcement action, the SEC continues to ratchet up its enforcement against companies that fail to properly disclose their cybersecurity incidents and risks. By naming the SolarWinds CISO...more
11/22/2023
/ Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cyber Incident Reporting ,
Cybersecurity ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fraud ,
Incident Response Plans ,
Popular ,
Risk Assessment ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
SolarWinds
CryptoLink is a compilation of news stories published by outside organizations. Akin aggregates these stories, but the information contained in them does not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of the firm. Akin's...more
10/10/2023
/ Bitcoin ,
Blockchain ,
CFTC ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FinTech ,
Investment ,
IOSCO ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Key Point -
Just over two weeks after the SEC announced the settlement of its first NFT enforcement action against Impact Theory, on September 13, 2023, the SEC announced its second NFT enforcement action against SC2, the...more
CryptoLink is a compilation of news stories published by outside organizations. Akin aggregates these stories, but the information contained in them does not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of the firm. Akin's...more
9/13/2023
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
CFTC ,
Coinbase ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Deposit Insurance ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
FDIC ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Fraud ,
IRS ,
Misleading Statements ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
North Korea ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Tax Evasion ,
U.S. Treasury
No financial services firm or professional welcomes an investigation by a regulator, let alone enforcement action. Each investigation proceeds differently depending on the target of the investigation, the subject matter and...more
Key Point -
Just shy of three weeks after Judge Torres held that the digital asset XRP is not itself a security,1 Judge Rakoff held that the SEC had adequately pled that certain digital assets, such as the UST and LUNA...more
Key Points -
SEC Enforcement and PCAOB Enforcement both are pursuing more significant sanctions against auditors, particularly with respect to civil money penalties.
Expect 2023 enforcement against auditors to focus...more
Washington is in a period of closely divided government. The Democrats have the White House; the Republicans have a bare majority in the House; and Democrats have a bare majority in the Senate. In practice, this means policy...more
Key Points -
On March 30, 2023, OFAC announced a settlement agreement with Wells Fargo for 124 apparent violations of three different sanctions programs (Iran, Syria and Sudan), all related to a legacy Wachovia Bank...more
4/18/2023
/ Compliance ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Corporate Culture ,
Corporate Misconduct ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Transactions ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Popular ,
Sanction Violations ,
Wells Fargo
Key Points -
The DOJ recently announced several policy updates tethering resolution of criminal investigations to a company’s compensation and bonus programs.
These updates include executive compensation focused...more
This December issue of Crypto Link covers the significant developments surrounding FTX Trading Ltd. (FTX), including its bankruptcy filing and the charges against and arrest of its CEO, Samuel Bankman-Fried. In the midst of...more
This edition of CryptoLink follows the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, and lawmakers in Congress are now outlining ambitious agenda priorities for next Congress, putting digital assets near the top of the list. Following the FTX...more
12/15/2022
/ Blockchain ,
CFTC ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Regulatory Agencies ,
FinCEN ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Unregistered Securities