2022 FCA Year in Review and Emerging Trends for 2023
Spitzer "Disappointed" in Wall Street's Regulators
On December 17, 2024, the SEC announced settled charges against Express, Inc. for failing to disclose perks paid to its then CEO, including personal use of airplanes. Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings,...more
Last week, the SEC announced settled charges against 23 companies and individuals for failing to timely file Section 16 reports on Forms 3, 4 or 5. Additionally, two public companies were charged for contributing to late...more
CFTC Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero recently criticized the agency’s longstanding practice of settling enforcement cases without seeking admissions of wrongdoing (so-called “no-admit/no-deny” settlements). She suggests...more
P.T. Barnum famously said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Oscar Wilde, however, gave that quote his own spin and said, “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being...more
The constitutional spotlight is shining on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the last several weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case seeking broader federal jurisdiction for constitutional...more
On Sept. 27, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the most recent legal challenge to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) practice of using “no-deny” consent agreements to resolve civil...more
The private equity industry should carefully consider the implications of a recent Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") enforcement action. In it, the SEC, for the first time, sanctioned an SEC-registered private equity...more
The penny stock world can be rough. So rough that breaking the rules in that corner of the securities markets ban bring its own kind of injunction, one that’s much more specific than the typical don’t-break-the-law-anymore...more
The SEC is continuing its pattern of establishing “standards of conduct” for the private equity industry through speeches, enforcement actions, and public settlements. After foreshadowing its concerns in various speeches over...more
Regulatory Developments: FINRA Requests Comment on Rules Relating to Financial Exploitation of Vulnerable Adults - On Oct. 15 FINRA published Regulatory Notice 15-37, requesting comment on proposed amendments to...more
On October 8, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged an investment adviser and a broker dealer for failing to maintain and enforce polices to prevent misuse of material non-public information. Without admitting...more
Results from the SEC’s First Round of Cybersecurity Examinations - On February 3, 2015, the OCIE published a risk alert summarizing its findings from its examinations of over 100 registered investment advisers and...more
Highlights Areas of High Risk and Examination Priorities for Financial Industry Firms - On September 15, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations (OCIE),...more
On September 22, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the settlement of an enforcement action against a St. Louis-based registered investment adviser (Adviser) brought under Rule 30(a) of Regulation...more
On September 8, the SEC charged a sports supplements and nutrition company, its former audit committee chairman and three of its current and former executive officers with committing accounting, disclosure and other...more
Without admitting or denying the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s findings, Polycom Inc. settled with the agency on Tuesday, March 31, 2015, over alleged insufficient internal controls and disclosure violations for...more
The SEC announced its first enforcement action against a company for using improperly restrictive language in confidentiality agreements with the potential to stifle the whistleblowing process....more
On March 13, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged eight officers, directors and major shareholders for failing to update material changes in their stock ownership disclosures on Schedule 13D in connection with...more
On October 16, in a groundbreaking trading manipulation case, the Securities and Exchange Commission entered an Order instituting a settled administrative proceeding against high-frequency trading firm Athena Capital...more
The SEC settled administrative proceedings against Christopher B. Ruffle (the “Portfolio Manager”) over his role in causing The China Fund, Inc., a U.S. registered closed-end fund (the “Registered Fund”), to engage in a...more
In November 2011, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York ignited a firestorm of commentary and concern among the securities bar by declining to approve a settlement between the SEC and Citigroup in which the...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) on May 1, 2014 announced a settlement (Settlement) with the New York Stock Exchange LLC and certain of its affiliates (collectively, the NYSE), addressing a variety...more
Following SEC Chair Mary Jo White’s recent remarks suggesting a change to the SEC’s long-standing policy of permitting defendants to settle cases “without admitting or denying” the SEC’s allegations of wrongdoing,...more
On June 18, 2013, in comments to the Wall Street Journal CFO Network Conference in Washington, D.C., SEC Chairman Mary Jo White announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission will begin to press for admissions of...more
For many years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has permitted defendants in enforcement actions to settle actions by entering into settlement agreements in which the defendants neither admitted nor denied the...more