Episode 286 -- Matt Stankiewicz on the Ripple Decision and Celsius CEO Indictment
Blue Sky Laws: Defending State-Level Securities Violations
The Justice Insiders: The Administrative State is Not Your Friend - A Conversation with Professor Richard Epstein
Four Decision Points in SEC Securities Investigations
Crypto Enforcement Is Here, and Always Has Been
Cryptocurrency: The Regulator’s Perspective
Investment Management Roundtable Discussion – Regulatory and Enforcement Update
On April 16, 2021, in In re Bibox Group Holdings Ltd. Securities Litigation, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed a putative class action alleging registration...more
Credit Suisse’s CEO Tidjane Thiam is out, to be succeeded next week by longtime company vet Thomas Gottstein. Thaim appeared to have ridden out the corporate spying scandal involving a former employee last year, and he had...more
On September 30, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that blockchain developer Block.one had agreed to pay a $24 million fine to settle charges that it had engaged in an unregistered offering of securities...more
Hiding somewhat in the shadows during the rise of virtual currencies over the past year or two has been blockchain, the ledger technology that undergirds bitcoin and other cryptos, and its potential application beyond digital...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has taken to using humor and sarcasm to educate retail investors about the potential risks of purchasing tokens in initial coin offerings (“ICOs”)....more
Escalating its regulatory scrutiny of initial coin offerings (“ICOs”), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has recently issued subpoenas to a reported 80 or more firms involved in the burgeoning industry...more
I am always amazed at how “business” entrepreneurs ignore enforcement risks in the face of specific warnings from regulators. The SEC and the CFTC have made it clear to the emerging initial coin offering (ICO) and...more
On December 4, the SEC’s new Cyber Unit announced it obtained an emergency asset freeze to halt the initial coin offering (“ICO”) of PlexCoin. According to the SEC, the Plexcoin ICO had raised up to $15 million to date...more
One week after filing a fraud suit against the organizer of the PlexCoin token sale, the SEC issued an enforcement order in connection with a token offering by Munchee and a public statement that shed some additional light on...more
SEC Chair Clayton delivered the following remarks at a conference of securities professionals: “My first message is simple and a bit stern. Market professionals, especially gatekeepers, need to act responsibly and hold...more
As reported in the most recent issue of Expect Focus, the SEC issued an investigative report in July cautioning market participants that distributed ledger (blockchain) technology-based offers and sales of digital "tokens" or...more
AT&T has dropped plans to sell the Mate 10—the newest smartphone from China’s Huawei Technologies—just before the partnership was to be announced. AT&T gave no reasons for its abrupt reversal, but lawmakers have recently...more
December 11, 2017 was a day of reckoning for entrepreneurs conducting or contemplating initial coin offerings, and for securities professionals who advise them. ...more
Munchee Inc., a California-based company selling digital tokens to investors to raise capital for its blockchain-based food review service halted its initial coin offering (ICO) after being contacted by the SEC. Munchee Inc....more
Ending months of speculation about when regulators would wade into the world of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recently brought its first enforcement actions against...more
On Friday, September 29, the SEC filed an emergency action in Federal District Court in New York against Maksim Zaslavskiy and two of his companies, REcoin Group and Diamond Reserve Club. ...more
Two initial coin offerings (ICOs) were the target of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement action filed on September 29. Based on the SEC’s descriptions, both ICOs, on their face, appear to be frauds, with...more
First, it was digital currencies like bitcoin. Then, it was distributed ledger technologies like blockchain. Now, another potentially groundbreaking innovation from this same community of technologists has vaulted to the...more
As discussed in a post from last week, the SEC determined that Initial Coin Offerings can be securities. The finding stems from the SEC’s investigation into The DAO’s offering and sale of DAO Tokens (a form of virtual...more
Orrick's global Blockchain Working Group is in the camp that believes the blockchain and associated token or appcoin innovations are here to stay and have the potential to be a significant disruptive force, but we will be...more
Many initial coin offerings (ICOs) have recently raised large amounts of capital without the regulatory constraints of traditional initial public offerings (IPOs) and other capital-raising strategies. On July 25, the U.S....more
It’s been far from a smooth ride for Uber over the past few weeks. And Friday’s revelation that the ride-sharing company’s been using a tool called “Greyball” to mine and use app data to “deceive the authorities in markets...more
Elon Musk is curing what ails SolarCity by having his Tesla motors company buy it—a move he’s called “obvious” [though others disagree] but which will leave him personally exposed to margin calls if the stock price for the...more