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Securities
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May 15, 2024
UnitedHealth Concealed DOJ Merger Investigation, Suit Says
UnitedHealth Group has been hit with a proposed shareholder class action alleging that it failed to disclose that the U.S. Department of Justice had reopened an antitrust investigation into the health insurance giant following its acquisition of a healthcare data company, and that top executives had sold more than $120 million of shares knowing about the investigation before a news report revealed it to the public.
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May 15, 2024
Scott + Scott, Schall To Rep Investors Against Bike Parts Co.
Scott + Scott Attorneys At Law LLP and the Schall Law Firm will represent a proposed class of investors in Georgia bicycle parts maker Fox Factory Holding Corp. in a suit alleging the company hurt investors by concealing slumping sales and demand.
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May 15, 2024
Lawmakers Move To Kill DOL's ERISA Fiduciary Regs
A group of 16 mostly Republican senators introduced a resolution Wednesday to overturn the U.S. Department of Labor's new rule broadening who qualifies as a fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, saying the regulations threaten Americans' ability to save for retirement.
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May 15, 2024
FTC Chair Khan Defends Request For 25% Budget Increase
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan defended a 25% budget increase request during a House appropriations hearing Wednesday, calling it "healthy" that aggressive Biden administration merger enforcement has made antitrust considerations top of mind for companies mulling transactions.
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May 15, 2024
Arizona Judge Revives Opendoor Investors' Securities Suit
An Arizona federal judge has revived a consolidated securities class action accusing real estate company Opendoor Technologies Inc. of misleading investors about the benefits of its pricing algorithm software in order to go public in a reverse merger with a special-purpose acquisition company.
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May 15, 2024
Startup Consultant Hits Hemp Co. With $2.1M Fee Suit
A consulting firm focused on helping startup companies raise capital is taking an industrial hemp firm, its owners and a guest lecturer at the University of Michigan's business school to Ohio federal court over $2.1 million in consulting fees it says it never got to collect.
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May 15, 2024
Tesla Fires Back At Claims It Bullied Retired Law Professor
Tesla has pushed back against allegations that it tried to bully a retired law professor out of weighing in on an investor suit over CEO Elon Musk's $56 billion compensation plan, according to new filings in Delaware.
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May 15, 2024
Brothers Stole $25M Of Crypto In 12 Seconds, Feds Say
Two Massachusetts Institute of Technology-educated brothers were charged with orchestrating a first-of-its-kind cryptocurrency heist that allowed them to siphon virtual tokens worth around $25 million from Ethereum blockchain users within just 12 seconds, an indictment unsealed Wednesday said.
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May 15, 2024
Buchalter Starts Fintech And AI Practice With New Seattle Hire
Buchalter PC announced that it hired the former chief legal officer at mortgage-focused fintech company Sagent as a Seattle-based shareholder and chair of its newly launched fintech and artificial intelligence practice group.
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May 15, 2024
Cahill Gordon Adds Crypto Attys, Launches Delaware Office
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP announced Wednesday that it has added three attorneys to its rebranded digital assets and emerging technology practice, including a former Delaware deputy attorney general who will lead its newly launched office in the state.
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May 15, 2024
Feds Push To Bar Fox Rothschild Atty's Testimony In Retrial
In a renewed bid, the government has urged a New Jersey federal court to bar a Fox Rothschild LLP partner from testifying as an expert witness in the retrial of a securities fraud case that ended in a dramatic mistrial, arguing that his testimony would constitute an irrelevant and an improper bid to bolster the defense.
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May 15, 2024
Chancery Orders $199M Penalty In TransCanada Deal Suit
Citing "non-cumulative" damages award offsets, a Delaware vice chancellor on Wednesday ordered the former TransCanada Corp. to pay $199 million of a potential $283 million judgment issued in a post-trial ruling last year on amounts owed to former Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. shareholders shorted in a 2016 merger.
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May 15, 2024
Ex-FTX Exec Seeks Leniency, Saying He Was Kept In The Dark
A former top FTX official has asked a Manhattan federal judge for a lenient 18-month sentence, saying he was not part of company co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle and was as shocked as everyone else to learn that the crypto exchange was operating a fraud that siphoned billions in customer funds.
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May 15, 2024
Senators Release 'Road Map' For Crafting Federal AI Policy
A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday laid out a "road map" for artificial intelligence policy that calls for increased AI innovation funding, testing of potential harms posed by AI and consideration of the technology's workforce implications.
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May 15, 2024
Archegos Ex-Accountant Tells Jury Of 'Vendetta' Inside Fund
A key cooperating witness had a "personal vendetta" against a former Archegos executive charged in the government's $36 billion market distortion case, according to testimony Wednesday by an ex-accountant at the fallen fund.
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May 14, 2024
Musk Can't Avoid Another Deposition In SEC Twitter Dispute
A California federal judge on Tuesday ordered Elon Musk to testify once again in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's suit over his $44 billion acquisition of X, formerly known as Twitter, finding that the SEC's subpoena "reasonably seeks" information relevant to the agency's investigation.
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May 14, 2024
In Hot Seat, FDIC's Gruenberg Pledges 'Fundamental Change'
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg will tell House lawmakers Wednesday that he is taking "full responsibility" for his agency's workplace misconduct scandal and eyeing "fundamental" structural reforms, striking a humbled but determined tone as he faces the first of two hearings that could be make-or-break for his job.
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May 14, 2024
Autonomy Overstated Revenue Before HP Sale, Jury Hears
Autonomy's reported revenue was overstated by a combined $300 million in the two-and-a-half years before HP acquired it, an accounting expert testified Tuesday in a California criminal trial over claims that Autonomy founder Michael Lynch duped HP into buying his software company for an inflated $11.7 billion price.
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May 14, 2024
FINRA Official Calls Off-Channel Flags 'Shockingly Common'
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority official said Tuesday that firms often veer into issues with off-channel business communications thanks to what's on their representatives' business cards and email signatures, and that the biggest red flag of recordkeeping violations are the habits of firms' own leaders and managers.
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May 14, 2024
Asset Manager Cops To $1.2B Venezuelan Oil Co. Fraud
An asset manager pled guilty Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering for his role in a $1.2 billion scheme to embezzle money from Venezuela's state-owned oil company and launder it through false investment schemes in the U.S. and abroad.
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May 14, 2024
SEC Fines Adviser For Undisclosed Movie Financing Deal
A wealth management firm and its founder will pay $950,000 in combined disgorgement and penalties to settle the SEC's claims they failed to disclose conflicts of interest regarding investments in a film production company and favored a certain client's redemption requests over others, according to an order issued Tuesday.
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May 14, 2024
Apache Investors Get First OK On $65M Deal In Drilling Suit
A U.S. magistrate judge has given the first green light to a $65 million settlement resolving a lawsuit against oil and gas company Apache Corp. filed by investors alleging they were deceived by promises of a potentially lucrative drilling project that ultimately led to a $3 billion write-down when it went bust.
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May 14, 2024
Berkshire Bank Sued For Customer's Alleged $90M Ponzi
Massachusetts-based Berkshire Bank is facing a proposed class action brought by an investor seeking to hold the bank liable for providing financial services to a bankrupt local business person whom the investor has accused of operating a $90 million Ponzi scheme.
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May 14, 2024
Ex-Wachovia Exec Owes $9M For Decade-Old Fraud, Feds Say
A former senior trading executive-turned-Christian novelist still owes over $9 million in restitution on a 17-year-old conviction for a Ponzi-like scheme he ran while working for what was then Wachovia's investment banking unit, according to federal prosecutors.
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May 14, 2024
5th Circ. Expresses Doubt On Nasdaq Board Diversity Rules
Lawyers for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Nasdaq Stock Market LLC faced a barrage of questions from the full Fifth Circuit on Tuesday, with judges wondering whether rules requiring corporations to disclose board diversity information would open the door to investor questions on religious practices, political beliefs or Taylor Swift fandom.
Expert Analysis
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Keeping Up With Class Actions: A New Era Of Higher Stakes
Corporate defendants saw unprecedented settlement numbers across all areas of class action litigation in 2022 and 2023, and this year has kept pace so far, with three settlements that stand out for the nature of the claims and for their high dollar amounts, says Gerald Maatman at Duane Morris.
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5 Climate Change Regulatory Issues Insurers Should Follow
The climate change landscape for insurers has changed dramatically recently — and not just because of the controversy over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related risk disclosure rules, says Thomas Dawson at McDermott.
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What's Extraordinary About Challenges To SEC Climate Rule
A set of ideologically diverse legal challenges to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rule have been consolidated in the Eighth Circuit via a seldom-used lottery system, and the unpredictability of this process may drive agencies toward a more cautious future approach to rulemaking, say attorneys at Thompson Coburn.
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Series
Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.
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Key Priorities In FDIC Report On Resolving Big Bank Failures
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s report last month on the resolvability of large financial institutions contains little new information, but it does reiterate key policy priorities, including the agency's desire to enhance loss-absorbing capacity through long-term debt requirements and preference for single-point-of-entry resolution strategies, say attorneys at Freshfields.
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A Recipe For Growth Equity Investing In A Slow M&A Market
Carl Marcellino at Ropes & Gray discusses the factors bolstering appetite for growth equity fundraising in a depressed M&A market, and walks through the deal terms and other ingredients that set growth equity transactions apart from bread-and-butter venture capital investing.
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Opinion
SEC Doesn't Have Legal Authority For Climate Disclosure Rule
Instead of making the required legal argument to establish its authority, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related disclosure rule hides behind more than 1,000 references to materiality to give the appearance that its rule is legally defensible, says Bernard Sharfman at RealClearFoundation.
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What 100 Federal Cases Suggest About Changes To Chevron
With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn or narrow its 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, a review of 100 recent federal district court decisions confirm that changes to the Chevron framework will have broad ramifications — but the magnitude of the impact will depend on the details of the high court's ruling, say Kali Schellenberg and Jon Cochran at LeVan Stapleton.
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Opinion
SEC Should Be Allowed To Equip Investors With Climate Info
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new rule to require more climate-related disclosures will provide investors with much-needed clarity, despite opponents' attempts to challenge the rule with misused legal arguments, say Sarah Goetz at Democracy Forward and Cynthia Hanawalt at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change.
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What Makes Unionization In Financial Services Unique
Only around 1% of financial services employees are part of a union, but that number is on the rise, presenting both unique opportunities and challenges for the employers and employees that make up a sector typically devoid of union activity, say Amanda Fugazy and Steven Nevolis at Ellenoff Grossman.
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How EB-5 Regional Centers Can Prepare For USCIS Audits
In response to the recently announced U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services guidelines that require EB-5 regional center audits every five years to verify their compliance with immigration and securities laws, regional centers should take steps to facilitate a seamless audit process, say Jennifer Hermansky and Miriam Thompson at Greenberg Traurig.
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FDIC Bank Disclosure Rules Raise Important Questions
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s new rules mandating disclosures for nonbanks offering deposit products leave traditional financial institutions in a no-man's land between fintech-oriented requirements and the reality of personal service demanded by customers, say Paul Clark and Casey Jennings at Seward & Kissel.
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Recent Wave Of SEC No-Action Denials May Be Slowing
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in March granted no-action relief to Verizon and others on the grounds that a director resignation bylaw proposal would mean violating Delaware law, bucking recent SEC hesitation toward such relief and showing that articulating a basis in state law is a viable path to exclude a proposal, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.
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Don't Use The Same Template For Every Client Alert
As the old marketing adage goes, consistency is key, but law firm style guides need consistency that contemplates variety when it comes to client alert formats, allowing attorneys to tailor alerts to best fit the audience and subject matter, says Jessica Kaplan at Legally Penned.
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10b-5 Litigation Questions Follow Justices' Macquarie Ruling
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Macquarie v. Moab that pure omissions are not actionable under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b–5(b), creating a slightly higher bar for plaintiffs and setting the stage for further litigation over several issues, say Steve Quinlivan and Sean Colligan at Stinson.