Crypto in the Crosshairs: What Regulatory Themes Characterized 2020?
Cryptocurrency, Legitimate Uses, and Legal Issues
Episode 3 - The Freeman Law Project - Cryptocurrency Regulation and Taxation: A Brief Primer
Summer Enforcement Action Review; Raising Money in a Pandemic - Investment Management Roundtable Discussion
Investment Management and Private Funds Roundtable: TALF 2020 and PPP Update
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – FinTech initiatives
Theoretical No More: Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrencies and the Tax, Legal and Business Implications
Former NBA player and Hall of Famer Paul Pierce is the latest celebrity cryptocurrency promoter to get caught in the net of the anti-touting provisions of federal securities laws. In a recent settled order issued by the SEC,...more
In a significant victory for the SEC, US District Court Judge Paul J. Barbadoro granted summary judgment to the SEC in what is the first enforcement action targeting a cryptocurrency not issued via an initial coin officer...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently announced enforcement actions that reflected sweeping, and previously unarticulated, views of their respective...more
Ms. Kardashian found herself on the wrong side of the law Monday, when the SEC entered a cease-and-desist order against her (the “Kardashian Order”), finding her in violation of Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933....more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates companies, brokerage firms, and individuals for a broad range of statutory and regulatory violations. These investigations can lead to civil or administrative...more
On July 14, 2021 the SEC issued a consented-to Cease and Desist Order against U.K.-based cryptocurrency review website owner Blotics Ltd. (formerly doing business as Coinschedule Ltd.) for violating Section 17(a) of the...more
Pending before the Second Circuit is a unique (and apparently sua sponte) application of the jurisdictional test announced by the Supreme Court in Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank Ltd., to dismiss non-securities state law...more
Updates from recent U.S. House Committee on Financial Services hearing and proposed legislation - In light of recent Congressional hearings and proposed legislation, market participants should remain vigilant and prepared...more
Five plaintiffs recently voluntarily dismissed their putative securities class action lawsuits one year after sending shock waves through the crypto world when they filed eleven alleged class action lawsuits against...more
This is the first article in a nine-part series that addresses the SEC’s unlawful suppression of new cryptocurrencies. Introduction - In 2017, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) established an agency-wide...more
Late last year, the SEC filed a litigated action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executive officers (collectively, “Ripple”), alleging that Ripple...more
On February 1, 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it had brought charges against several individuals involved in an alleged scheme to induce investors to transfer more than $11 million to...more
The SEC, in one of the Commission’s final acts under the leadership of Chair Jay Clayton, approved enforcement action aimed at Ripple Labs, Inc. (“Ripple”) and two of its executives, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen. The...more
Digital assets sit on the cutting edge of investable products, but two recent events can give investors comfort that the US securities laws will still protect them even in these sometimes uncharted waters. First, a securities...more
Telegram, Kik and Tezos Cases Reach Milestones in Blockchain Token Litigation - On May 24, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) motion for a...more
Hollywood martial arts sensei Steven Seagal was recently karate-chopped by the SEC for his alleged undisclosed payments for Twitter-touting a security that was being offered and sold in an initial coin offering. In a settled...more
Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an Investor Alert (the Alert) warning investors to use caution before investing in initial exchange offerings (IEOs) through online trading platforms. The...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On Thursday, February 6, 2020, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce proposed rules which, if certain conditions are met, would, for three years, exempt (1) the offer and sale of tokens from most provisions of the...more
In 2019, regulators continued to consider whether and how to regulate blockchain technology. After the two previous years that included a high number of initial coin offerings (ICOs), many of which involved allegedly...more
It was a year filled with tantalizing tidbits and many loose ends. 2019 marked the 10th year since blockchain technology was released into the wild by its still unknown inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, who mined the first bitcoin...more
On December 18, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced settled charges against blockchain technology company Blockchain of Things Inc. (BCOT) for conducting an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO) of...more
Developing a framework for consumer tokens - With the rapid growth in the development of blockchain technology, virtual currencies and token sales (sometimes referred to as initial coin offerings, or ICOs), token...more
In a somewhat surprising move, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) entered into a $24 million settlement with Block.one on September 30, 2019, over its unregistered initial coin offering (ICO) that raised upwards of...more
This white paper discusses considerations related to conducting a token offering under Regulation A under the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”). The benefit of this strategy is that it can allow broad...more
On August 20, 2019, the SEC announced an enforcement action against ICO Rating for violating the anti-touting provisions of Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933. While these anti-touting rules apply to all securities,...more