Feature

30 Years On, PSLRA Debates Still Rage In Securities Cases

By Jessica Corso

Thirty years ago this month, Congress overrode a presidential veto to enact a law that changed the landscape of shareholder class action lawsuits. How the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act will continue to change that landscape remains a live issue as courts continue to wrestle with the question of how investors can prove that they've been injured by alleged corporate malfeasance.

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Nasdaq Seeks Power To Block IPOs Over Manipulation Risks

By Al Barbarino

Nasdaq proposed a rule change on Friday that would give the exchange new discretion to block initial public offerings even when companies meet all quantitative listing requirements, citing concerns that certain stocks could be vulnerable to manipulation once they begin trading.

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Chancery Issues Rare Redemption Order In Congo Dispute

By Jeff Montgomery

A rare Court of Chancery battle over control of a sprawling palm oil plantation enterprise along Africa's Congo River has produced an equally rare court order for "redemptions in kind," or an unwinding and separation from an investor who led what the court described as a multi-faceted enterprise "coup."

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Crypto Industry Balks At Citadel Securities' Call For Regs

By Jessica Corso

Cryptocurrency advocates pushed back Friday against Citadel Securities' request that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission more closely monitor decentralized trading platforms, contending that placing the industry under the same strictures as traditional exchanges would "undermine" innovation.

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OCC Conditionally Grants 5 Crypto-Focused Trust Charters

By Aislinn Keely

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday gave five crypto-focused firms a preliminary nod to operate as national trust banks, clearing the way for crypto to integrate further into the banking system despite pushback from banking lobbyists.

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CFTC Drops 'Outdated' Crypto Guidance On Actual Delivery

By Katryna Perera

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has withdrawn what it called "outdated" guidance on the actual delivery of cryptocurrency, to be more in line with recommendations from the President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, and has issued no-action letters to several prediction market platforms.

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Betting, Trading Platforms Form Prediction Market Alliance

By Ganesh Setty

A group of betting and trading platforms said they've created a new organization to advance the interests of prediction markets as betting challenges from states intensify and Congress starts to formally structure the cryptocurrency market writ large.

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Oppenheimer Fined $1.2M In SEC Muni Bond Disclosure Case

By Sarah Jarvis

Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. has agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission $1.2 million for allegedly skirting municipal bond disclosure requirements, the regulator announced Friday.

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Bogus AI Hedge Fund Chief Finalizes $4.1M SEC Deal

By Emilie Ruscoe

A self-styled hedge fund CEO who pled guilty to scamming investors with claims that his firm used artificial intelligence for its high-frequency trading strategy has finalized a parallel $4.1 million settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, though the debts would be considered satisfied by his criminal restitution, a Brooklyn federal judge said Friday.

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SEC, Ex-Advisers Settle Unregistered Securities Sales Claims

By Sydney Price

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a settlement with a pair of former investment advisers it accused of participating in a fraudulent scheme to sell unregistered oil and gas securities, according to a motion filed on Friday.

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Chancery Lets Nextdoor Argue De-SPAC Suit Filed Too Late

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court on Friday let Nextdoor Inc. and related defendants argue that investors waited too long to sue over the company's de-SPAC merger, while pausing discovery as the court considers motions that could end the case.

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Wrong Metric Created $2 Valuation, Chancery Suit Says

By Jarek Rutz

A former equity holder in a nutrition services business has sued in Delaware Chancery Court seeking to unwind what it calls a sham $2 repurchase of its ownership interest and to force payment of a separate $2 million deferred purchase price, arguing that the business disregarded contractually mandated valuation mechanics to engineer a zero-value outcome.

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Ex-Fiserv CEO Accused Of Insider Trading In New Suit

By Emilie Ruscoe

The top brass of payments company Fiserv Inc., including ex-CEO and Social Security Administration head Frank Bisignano, face shareholder derivative claims that they misled investors about a flagship product's declining sales and used the resulting inflated share prices to justify $7.9 billion in stock buybacks as Bisignano and another officer made proceeds of over $600 million selling off their Fiserv shares.

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Molina Investor Sues Board Over Insurer's Guidance Cuts

By Sydney Price

Executives and directors of health insurance provider Molina Healthcare were hit with a shareholder's derivative suit Friday accusing them of misleading investors about medical cost trends and internal controls before repeatedly slashing the company's 2025 earnings guidance.

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Brief

Starbucks Defends Ex-CFO In Investors' 'Triple Shot' Suit

By Sydney Price

Starbucks Corp. is fighting shareholders' effort to reinstate claims against its former chief financial officer in a lawsuit they brought over the company's "Triple Shot" reinvention plan, arguing that a judge in Seattle correctly dismissed claims against the onetime executive. 

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Higgs Fletcher Forms White Collar, Regs Enforcement Team

By Andrea Keckley

San Diego-based law firm Higgs Fletcher & Mack LLP has launched a white collar crime and regulatory enforcement defense practice group, citing heightened regulatory scrutiny in the financial and healthcare sectors and rising enforcement risks for licensed professionals and institutions.

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ArentFox Adds Cross-Border Corporate Atty From Reed Smith

By Andrea Keckley

ArentFox Schiff LLP announced Wednesday that it has added a Los Angeles-based partner from Reed Smith LLP to its corporate and securities practice, calling her "one of the most prominent Chinese-speaking corporate lawyers in the US."

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The SEC Whistleblower Program A Year Into 2nd Trump Admin

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's whistleblower program continues to operate as designed, but its internal cadence, scrutiny of claims and operational structure reflect a period of recalibration, with precision mattering more than ever, say attorneys Scott Silver and David Chase.

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Opinion

Supreme Court Term Limits Would Carry Hidden Risk

While proposals for limiting the terms of U.S. Supreme Court justices are popular, a steady stream of relatively young, highly marketable ex-justices with unique knowledge and influence entering the marketplace of law and politics could create new problems, say Michael Broyde at Emory University and Hayden Hall at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

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Bonus Spotlight

Axinn Veltrop's Bonuses Reach Up To $240K

By Andrea Keckley

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP is giving out bonuses of up to $240,000 for its associates, according to an in-house memo seen by Law360 Pulse.

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Watchdog Sues White House For Records On Law Firm Deals

By Emily Sawicki

A Washington-based nonprofit watchdog has sued the Trump administration, seeking records related to deals BigLaw firms struck to provide an estimated nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal services to further the administration's priorities, following the president's executive orders to withhold security clearances and investigate the firms.

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Analysis

2025 Sees State Courts Diverge From Federal Criminal Norms

By Brandon Lowrey

Some of this year's most notable criminal appellate rulings homed in on differences between state and federal constitutional protections against the most serious punishments, with movement in Michigan, bucking the trend in Wyoming, and an ambiguous but potentially earthshaking decision out of Texas.

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US Atty Nominee For Wyo. Was Outside Capitol On Jan. 6

By Courtney Bublé

One of President Donald Trump's U.S. attorney nominees, who was on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, and recently told senators he still thinks "there were imperfections" in the 2020 election process, has been advanced toward Senate confirmation.

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Del. US Atty Resigns Citing 'Politics,' Successor Appointed

By Rose Krebs

The acting U.S. Attorney for Delaware said Friday that she is resigning, citing "a highly politicized, flawed blue-slip tradition" for nominees and saying she "fully" supports her first assistant, who has been appointed by a federal judge to succeed her.

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Dems Demand Release Of 2nd Jack Smith Report

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday demanding she release the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith's report on President Donald Trump's retention of classified documents after he left office the first time.

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Alex Jones Atty's Pared-Down Suspension Upheld On Appeal

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut appeals court on Friday upheld the two-week suspension of former Alex Jones lawyer Norm Pattis, agreeing that a trial court judge was within her discretion to bench the attorney over his law firm's handling of Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre victims' medical records.

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DOJ Shake-Up Keeps Criminal Tax Meetings, Ex-Official Says

By Kat Lucero

The U.S. Department of Justice — despite recently eliminating its Tax Division as part of a broad restructuring — continues to meet with practitioners representing clients who may face federal criminal tax charges, the former division chief said Friday.

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Wash. Justices Retroactively Lower Bar Exam's Passing Score

By Ben Adlin

As Washington state is preparing to transition to a new bar exam, its Supreme Court has ordered a retroactive adjustment to the current exam's minimum passing score, making an estimated hundred-plus law school graduates who narrowly failed in recent years newly eligible for admission to practice law.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Shell hit with a climate change claim from 100 survivors of a typhoon in the Philippines, London Stock Exchange-listed Oxford Nanopore bring legal action against its co-founder, and the editors of Pink News sue the BBC for defamation following its investigation into alleged sexual misconduct at the news site.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

President Donald Trump issued an executive order to review the influence that proxy adviser firms have, and law firms saw a 9.8% increase in compensation expenses along with a similar increase in billable rates. ​These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP and Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Ninth Circuit handed Epic Games Inc. a partial win by mostly affirming an injunction blocking Apple Inc. from charging developers "prohibitive" commissions on iPhone app purchases made outside its systems.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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