On April 7, 2024, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut approved the Securities and Exchange Commission’s request to dismiss its action against a hedge fund manager for the manager’s alleged failure...more
On February 27, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission formally abandoned its enforcement action against Coinbase. ...more
3/5/2025
/ Coinbase ,
Compliance ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Howey ,
Investment ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Regulation
On Friday, Coinbase announced that the SEC staff had agreed in principle to dismiss its case alleging the company had failed to register as a securities exchange, broker-dealer, and clearing agency. We can expect the...more
2/25/2025
/ Blockchain ,
Coinbase ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Cybersecurity ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
FinTech ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Regulation
Last week President Trump signed an Executive Order pausing enforcement of the nation’s most robust anti-bribery statute, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). The EO seeks a complete overhaul of the FCPA enforcement...more
2/14/2025
/ Anti-Bribery ,
Attorney General ,
Cartels ,
Compliance ,
Corporate Governance ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
National Security ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Significant Transnational Criminal Organization ,
UK
According to reports, more than 50 lawyers and staffers in the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit have been reassigned to other roles in the agency....more
On November 22, 2024, the SEC released its fiscal year 2024 enforcement statistics. According to the accompanying press release, the SEC filed 583 total enforcement actions—431 of them standalone actions—while obtaining $8.2...more
11/26/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Enforcement ,
Insider Trading ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Companies ,
Market Abuse ,
Non-Public Information ,
Press Releases ,
Sanctions ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies
There are some in the crypto community who—frustrated with the enforcement first approach of (outgoing) SEC Chair Gary S. Gensler—invested heavily to elect Donald J. Trump the 47th President of the United States. Was that a...more
On August 7, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York permanently enjoined Ripple from future violations of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933—that is, from the unregistered offer and sale of...more
On June 28, 2024, in SEC v. Binance Holdings Limited, et al., the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a Memorandum Opinion & Order on the defendants’ motions to dismiss the SEC’s charges against them. ...more
On July 26, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a Complaint in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles charging activist short publisher Andrew Left and Citron Capital, LLC, an investment adviser he...more
On June 13, 2024, Terraform Labs PTE, Ltd. and Do Kwon agreed to pay more than $4.5 billion to settle the SEC’s case against them. The settlement followed a jury verdict holding Terraform Labs and Kwon liable for securities...more
On May 23, 2024, the SEC approved listing of eight ETH ETPs. The order approved the applications to list the ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF, the Fidelity Ethereum Fund, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust, the Bitwise Ethereum ETF, the...more
On April 5, 2024, after an eight-day trial, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California returned a verdict for the Securities and Exchange Commission in its first “shadow trading” case after...more
4/10/2024
/ Asset Management ,
California ,
Commercial Litigation ,
Corporate Governance ,
Fund Managers ,
Insider Trading ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investors ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Risk Management ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Litigation
On March 8, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded a District Court decision that dismissed all claims by plaintiff crypto investors against Binance, an international electronic exchange...more
3/21/2024
/ Appeals ,
Blue Sky Laws ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Class Action ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Foreign Jurisdictions ,
Investors ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Token Sales
On January 31, 2024, bankrupt Genesis Global Holdco, LLC, on behalf of its subsidiary Genesis Global Capital, LLC1 asked the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to approve a settlement reached...more
On November 20, 2023, the SEC filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Payward, Inc. and Payward Ventures, Inc. which, together, do business as Kraken. The...more
11/28/2023
/ Blockchain ,
Broker-Dealer ,
CFTC ,
Clearing Agencies ,
Cryptoassets ,
Ethereum ,
Fraud ,
Howey ,
Investors ,
Market Participants ,
Negligence ,
Ripple ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Unregistered Securities
On Sept 13, 2023, for its second non-fungible token (NFT) related enforcement action, the SEC issued a settled Order against Stoner Cats 2, LLC (“SC2”) for SC2’s offer and sale of 10,320 NFTs linked to images of characters...more
Summary of the Recent SEC Actions -
On August 8, 2023, in yet another set of enforcement actions in the space, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) settled charges against ten broker-dealers and a dually...more
Three days before Christmas 2020, the SEC served Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives with a lawsuit. How is that for a present under the tree? As the SKrypto Blog reported at the time, the main issue was whether XRP, a...more
7/19/2023
/ Coinbase ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Howey ,
Ripple ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Litigation ,
Securities Regulation ,
Securities Violations ,
Sellers ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities
On June 5, 2023, the SEC filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, known to the world as...more
...On March 22, 2023, Coinbase, Inc. received a Wells notice from the SEC.
A Wells notice is the means by which the staff of the Enforcement Division informs someone it has decided to recommend the Commission bring an...more
DOJ Promotes Compliance Through Compensation and Clawback Programs (3.2.2023):
• The DOJ announced corporate criminal resolutions will now include a requirement that companies implement a compensation and bonus scheme...more
3/10/2023
/ 10b5-1 Plans ,
Bank Fraud ,
CFTC ,
Clawbacks ,
Compensation ,
Compliance ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Insider Trading ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Self-Disclosure Requirements
On March 1, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) unsealed an indictment charging Terren S. Peizer, the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ontrak Inc., a publicly traded health care company, with engaging in...more
During this 30-minute webinar, Seward & Kissel partners from the Firm’s Government Enforcement and Internal Investigations Group will discuss the SEC’s recent enforcement actions regarding recordkeeping failures related to...more
On January 12, 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Genesis Global Capital LLC (Genesis) and Gemini Trust Company, LLC (Gemini) for the unregistered offer and sale of securities through the Gemini Earn...more