PLI's inSecurities Podcast - Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga’s Core Values
Law Brief®: The Theranos Trial
Legally Qualified: Protecting Against Elder Investment Fraud and Exploitation
The Justice Department and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) have charged eight men of using their social media clout to manipulate investors in a stock pump-and-dump scheme. The defendants allegedly took to Twitter...more
Many businesses and businesspeople are exposed to potential legal liability for a wide variety of financial crimes. Minimizing financial crime risk or exposure is critical and requires strict compliance with the state and...more
EmpiresX Head Trader Pleads Guilty to $100M Cryptocurrency Investment Fraud Scheme - On September 8, 2022, the “Head Trader” for EmpiresX, a purported cryptocurrency platform, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to...more
DOJ and SEC Bring Charges Against Executive in Alleged $62 Million Global Crypto Investment Fraud Scheme - On May 6, 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a federal district court in the Southern District of...more
On January 28, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against HeadSpin, Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up....more
On November 23, 2021, the SEC issued an award of $400,000 to a whistleblower who voluntarily provided the SEC with original information that assisted the agency in bringing a successful enforcement action that resulted in the...more
The Department of Justice is on high alert for situations when hype turns to fraud at tech startups. Journalist John Carreyrou, whose reporting helped expose what the SEC called an “elaborate, years-long fraud” by Theranos...more
Sixth Circuit Splits with Tenth, Holds False Claims Act Anti-Retaliation Provision Extends to Post-Employment Retaliation - On March 31, 2021, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit addressed an issue of first...more
For public and private companies in all industries, the risk of being targeted in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation is a very real concern. As new and innovative securities offerings continue to be...more
Earlier this month, a superseding indictment was unsealed in the Southern District of New York, charging Pablo Rodriguez, Gutemberg Dos Santos, Scott Hughes, Cecilia Milan, and Jackie Aguilar for their roles in a...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently charged two Maryland companies and their executives in a scheme that allegedly defrauded approximately 1,200 investors of more than $27 million. ...more
State and federal regulators have issued numerous warnings of increased fraudulent activity in light of the economic dislocations caused by COVID-19. In addition to consumer scams such as fake coronavirus tests or medication...more
Stocks rebounded with the S&P 500 making gains for the second time in three days and 10-year Treasury yields fell below 1%; analyst suggest the market upswing was caused, in part, by the Democratic primary results showing...more
To our bad guys, 2019 was a year flush with hope and opportunity; it ended with recidivism, more misery from Venezuela, a charlatan, an Okie who pulled a multi-million dollar fast-one on Chesapeake and, as in years past, a...more
In New York Supreme Court, Exxon was on trial for allegedly misleading investors about the business costs of climate change. The central allegation was that Exxon fraudulently used two distinct sets of metrics to calculate...more
Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski announced the restructuring of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Securities and Financial Fraud Unit within the Fraud section of the Criminal Division. The unit will now be known...more
After more than 110 years as one of its mainstays, General Electric is out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It will be replaced by drugstore retailer Walgreens Boots Alliance....more
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York has announced that a federal grand jury has returned an indictment against three Florida men who co-founded cryptocurrency company Centra Tech, Inc. The...more
Commerce Department data released yesterday showed strong across-the-board consumer spending in April, a nominally good sign but one that pushed bond yields higher and sent most equities lower for the day, snapping an 8-day...more
On August 15, 2016, the Second Circuit issued a rare opinion on the subject of the sufficiency of evidence to establish venue in United States v. Lange, No. 14-2442-cr (Jacobs, Chin, Droney). ...more
Once again we look back at the continuing cavalcade of crooks, criminals, miscreants and, to put it kindly, morons the less intellectually gifted, who met justice face-to-face in 2017. This year’s class includes a preacher,...more
The Situation: Promoters of two recent initial coin offerings face charges of investor fraud brought by the SEC, after allegedly misrepresenting the assets purportedly backing the offerings, exaggerating the amount of funds...more
The SEC charged a businessman and two companies with defrauding investors in a pair of so-called initial coin offerings, or ICOs, purportedly backed by investments in real estate and diamonds....more
Twenty-three-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps just raced a great white shark to celebrate Shark Week 2017. He lost. And he didn't race against a live shark, but a computer-generated image of one. Phelps swam alone...more
On June 30, 2017, the SEC and the U.S. Attorney brought parallel civil and criminal fraud charges against Renwick Haddow, the owner of an unregistered broker-dealer entity named InCrowd Equity Inc., and two corporate entities...more