A Minnesota-based student loan guaranty agency is withholding dozens of emails that could tie it to a scheme that aims to put off debt rehabilitations and consolidations to unfairly maximize collections costs, according to a petition from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau demanding the company fork over those emails.
The coronavirus relief package's marquee benefits provision will funnel $81.2 billion in Treasury dollars toward helping struggling union pension plans, but a part of the bill impacting nonunion pension and 401(k) plans has some retirees up in arms.
If Gary Gensler is confirmed as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's next chair, regulators could delve deeper into the explosion of blank-check entities and their subsequent acquisitions to examine where investor protections can be strengthened. Here are four areas where regulators could step up scrutiny of special purpose acquisition companies.
The Estate Cos. is reportedly hoping to convert a Florida resort into apartment units, Innovo Property Group has reportedly landed $155 million in financing for a New York industrial project and Morgan Properties is said to have purchased a Florida apartment complex for $31.3 million.
A former Morgan Stanley financial adviser will not be allowed out of prison due to COVID-19 risks, a judge said Friday, citing the "irony" of the convicted man asking to care for his aging parents after swindling an elderly victim in a "despicable" fraud scheme.
A California federal judge has declined to sanction an objector to a Wells Fargo settlement over fake accounts after investors accused the objector and his attorneys of extorting $1.75 million from the bank, saying the court won't order disgorgement of a settlement reached in a state court lawsuit.
Private equity firm InterPrivate launched three blank-check companies into the public markets Friday after the companies raised a combined $700 million in White & Case LLP-guided initial public offerings.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against AT&T and three of its investor relations executives Friday for allegedly making selective disclosures of nonpublic information to research analysts.
The past week in London has seen Scotland's ferry services sue its insurer, Britain's new high-speed rail service face another contract challenge and an ex-Qatari prime minister's company hit with a new suit. Here, Law360 looks at those and other new claims in the U.K.
A New York federal judge on Thursday threw out a consolidated shareholder lawsuit against Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and two former Merrill Lynch traders over alleged spoofing in the precious metals futures market, ruling that the shareholders waited too long to bring their claims.
The Boeing Co.'s leadership struggled on multiple fronts to get ahead of negative news about the company's 737 Max jetliners after one of them crashed in late 2018, according to documents released Thursday in a Delaware Chancery Court stockholder lawsuit.
A Michigan federal judge ruled on Thursday that Great American Fidelity Insurance Co. can restart its bid to dodge coverage of a lawsuit accusing advisory firm Stout Risius Ross of faulty stock valuations, reasoning that the stock suit has been reduced to just one claim that's ineligible for coverage.
A split Second Circuit panel on Thursday allowed a DST Systems Inc. worker to bring his proposed ERISA class action against Ruane Cunniff & Goldfarb Inc. in court, overturning a lower court's decision that an agreement the worker signed compelled him to arbitrate his challenge to the benefit plan administrator's conduct.
A Swedish hotelier accused of using the proceeds of a $16 million investment scam to buy a resort in Thailand pled guilty Wednesday to running the scheme and laundering money through various platforms, including popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
A pair of joint whistleblowers operating abroad were awarded more than $5 million for information that led to a successful U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement action, but two additional individuals who claimed that their tips to the "news media" had assisted the agency were denied, according to an order published Thursday.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it has created a new task force to clamp down on environmental, social and governance-related disclosure violations, a move that drew an immediate rebuke from two Republican commissioners who suggested the enforcement initiative was premature without any changes to existing rules.
Real estate analytics company CoreLogic rejected a sweetened $7.3 billion takeover offer from peer CoStar Group Thursday, citing the latter company's volatile stock price and regulatory uncertainty for the tie-up, in contrast to its pending $6 billion deal with Stone Point Capital LLC and Insight Partners.
An unsealed document has revealed a fierce discovery fight in UBS Financial Services Inc.'s contract lawsuit against Ohio National Life Insurance Co., with the insurer seeking to revive its sanctions bid over document requests that UBS says are justified.
Insurance technology company Hippo, guided by Latham & Watkins, has agreed to merge with a Sullivan & Cromwell-advised special purpose acquisition company that is led by the co-founder of LinkedIn at an enterprise value of $5 billion, the companies said Thursday.
A blank-check company sponsored by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick started trading Wednesday after raising $300 million in an Ellenoff Grossman-led initial public offering.
Two former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairs, along with attorneys general from 16 states, have thrown their support behind a class of Goldman Sachs investors fighting in the U.S. Supreme Court to remain certified.
A Texas magistrate judge recommended the dismissal of a Dallas finance company's suit accusing an Austin, Texas, suburb of misleading it into providing $15 million to revive a failing real estate project, saying the financier's allegations don't support a wrongful takings claim.
The nation's top securities regulator will step up its focus on climate risks and digital assets as it probes regulated companies in the year ahead, according to the annual report released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's examinations unit on Wednesday.
A Delaware Supreme Court panel pressed attorneys for MetLife Inc. stockholders Wednesday on when directors might be liable for neglected "red flag" warnings against sweeping up unclaimed retirement annuities after wrongly presuming a beneficiary's death, and whether the neglect amounted to bad faith by the company's board.
Citibank NA moved Tuesday for an injunction while it appeals its fight to recover more than $500 million it inadvertently transferred to creditors of Revlon Inc., urging a New York federal judge to keep the funds under a court-ordered freeze after he ruled the bank isn't entitled to get them back.
A New York federal court's recent ruling that Citibank could not claw back funds it mistakenly wired to Revlon lenders contains several legal issues an appellate court will likely review without deference to the lower court — and could lead to the lenders being ordered to return the payments, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.
Attorneys working remotely from jurisdictions in which they are not admitted should take precautionary steps to avoid engaging in unauthorized practice of law, say John Schmidt and Michael Seaman at Phillips Lytle.
Parenting during the pandemic has introduced a series of competing personal and professional obligations for attorneys and professional staff, and even organizations that are supportive of their parent employees can take steps to do better, says Meredith Kahan at Saul Ewing.
Although a California federal court recently ruled a donor-advised fund sponsor did not breach prudent investor standards in Fairbairn v. Fidelity Charitable, the case shows that disgruntled donors may initiate claims against charities over nonbinding advisory privileges, and could introduce a wave of litigation over alleged investment mismanagement, says Karl Mill at Adler & Colvin.
The prospect of joining a law firm during the pandemic can cause added pressure, but with a few good practices — and a little help from their firms and supervising attorneys — lawyer trainees can get ahead of the curve while working remotely, say William Morris and Ted Landray at King & Spalding.
Attorneys at Nossaman look at how President Joe Biden’s ethics pledge goes beyond those of his predecessors by imposing post-employment shadow lobbying and golden parachute restrictions on his administration’s appointees — and how a House bill proposing expansion of federal ethics law could affect enforcement.
Opinion
Law graduates across the states are sitting for the grueling two-day bar exam this week despite menstruation-related barriers, such as inadequate menstrual product and bathroom access, which could be eradicated with simple policy tweaks, say law professors Elizabeth Cooper, Margaret Johnson and Marcy Karin.
Consultants at Deloitte discuss the tax implications of India's latest budget proposals, including the potential benefits for foreign portfolio investors and offshore funds migrating to India's new international financial services center, and the possible rise of M&A costs.
The U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division report on the Fraud Section's accomplishments in 2020 reveals impressive enforcement productivity, despite pandemic-related limitations, and we should expect to see a significant increase in prosecution later this year, say Kevin Muhlendorf and Holly Wilson at Wiley.
Banking regulators will likely start issuing regulations and guidance on assessing climate-related risks soon, so bank directors and senior management must incorporate climate change into their risk assessments and mitigation frameworks, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
Opinion
Congress rushed through a National Defense Authorization Act provision that upended sensible restrictions on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's ability to collect disgorgement, cementing the agency's ill-suited role as governmental debt collector for private investor losses, says Russell Ryan at King & Spalding.
The volume and diversity of data managed by law firms today — from client files to internal financial records — may seem daunting, but when properly organized, good data can help practitioners stay competitive by providing sharper insight into firm resources and cost of work, say Jaron Luttich and Barry Wiggins at Element Standard.
Whether a law firm dissolution is amicable or adversarial, departing attorneys should take steps to maintain their legal and ethical responsibilities toward clients, and beware client confidentiality pitfalls when joining new firms, say John Schmidt and Colin Fitzgerald at Phillips Lytle.
Jeanette Turner at SEI analyzes how the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recent pivot away from pool-specific reporting requirements it implemented after the 2008 financial crisis will change commodity pool operators' disclosure obligations in the coming months.
Courts are leading the way in ensuring oral argument opportunities for newer attorneys by incorporating innovative language in a variety of orders, and private parties can and should follow suit by incorporating similar language into case management orders, say Megan Jones and Halli Spraggins at Hausfeld.