The federal board charged with overseeing Puerto Rico’s financial overhaul and addressing its debt crisis was unconstitutionally appointed and must either be confirmed by the U.S. Senate or replaced in accordance with the law within the next 90 days, the First Circuit ruled Friday.
Creditors of Sears Holding Corp. were given the green light on Friday to investigate the bankrupt retailer's sale of $900 million in intercompany debt to a major lender, with a New York bankruptcy court approving requests to issue a slew of subpoenas and conduct discovery.
The Second Circuit ordered a lower judge to resentence securities fraudster Scott Valente on Friday, saying the judge had put too much weight on Valente’s drunk driving-related offenses in his calculation of the sentencing guidelines before giving him 20 years in prison.
An incarcerated former hedge fund boss was spared additional prison time Friday for his role in a multipronged securities fraud scheme involving KIT Digital Inc., with a Manhattan federal judge citing his cooperation in two trials that led to the convictions of the video technology startup's CEO and others.
The officers of an imported high-end vehicles dealership that does business in China asked a Nevada federal judge Friday to toss a shareholder's claims they're mismanaging their business at the investor's expense, arguing that the entire complaint is based on vague allegations that fall below legal standards.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit on Friday against four individuals and businesses in their control for allegedly conducting a pair of elaborate fraud schemes in which fake debt notes for microcap companies were converted into stock and then sold to the public at a profit.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is encouraging companies to reveal more about how they consider diversity when composing their boards of directors, a move that could shed more light on a topic that Congress and certain large shareholders are increasingly scrutinizing.
The Second Circuit on Friday revived U.S. Bank's New York federal court suit seeking to make Bank of America buy back a $9 million mortgage loan from a commercial mortgage-backed securities trust, ruling that the case shouldn't be sent back to where it began in Indiana but should be decided under Hoosier state law.
Wall Street regulators fared well in Friday’s spending package, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission securing its first budget increase in four years and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission receiving tens of millions of dollars more than it bargained for, including cash to relocate in Manhattan.
A New York federal judge incorrectly recertified a class of investors who accused Goldman Sachs Group Inc. of lying about its ethical compliance efforts before it lost $1 billion in securities known as collateralized debt obligations, the Wall Street giant argued in its appeal to the Second Circuit on Friday.
An Akorn Inc. investor told an Illinois federal court the pharmaceutical company's executives should not be able to dodge a suit alleging they lied in public statements for their own benefit, concealed regulatory problems and sunk a major merger deal with their inept behavior.
Bristow Group Inc., a Houston-based provider of aviation services for oil companies and search and rescue efforts, was hit with a lawsuit Thursday in Texas federal court alleging its stock price declined due to its failure to disclose deficiencies in its financial reporting procedures.
An Illinois man claims Molson Coors Brewing Co. artificially inflated its stock price by misstating its tax liability by almost $248 million in documents filed during 2017 and 2018, and filed a class action Friday in Colorado federal court.
Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. managing director Roger Ng Chong Hwa has agreed to be extradited from Malaysia to the U.S. to face charges of conspiring to misappropriate more than $2.7 billion from Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad.
The head of a development company was “‘consciously’ reckless” when he diverted money raised from investors through the EB-5 visa program so he could make payments on his BMW and issue loans to relatives, misappropriating at least $6.5 million, a Washington federal judge held on Friday.
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP has added a former Vinson & Elkins LLP commercial litigator to its New York City office as a partner.
K12 Inc. will pay $3.5 million to settle claims by investors that its top brass violated securities law by hiding inflated attendance figures and publishing false data about academic success.
The last week has seen the European arm of a Japanese investment bank sue a Saudi billionaire, the former prime minister of Qatar face action involving a pricey mansion and a Swiss bank file claims against executives of a defunct business group being investigated by the U.K.'s fraud watchdog. Here, Law360 looks at those and other new claims in the U.K.
A proposed class of investors suing GoPro Inc. for allegedly concealing missteps that caused its stock to drop have asked a California federal court to approve a $6.75 million settlement to put those claims to rest, calling the deal an "excellent result."
The $1 billion fraud case against four insiders at failed hedge fund manager Platinum Partners is going to trial in Brooklyn on Tuesday, setting up a courtroom showdown two years in the making.
The recent Oxbow Carbon Unitholder Litigation demonstrated many common put valuation issues, but also how an alignment mechanism can foster cooperation despite a highly adversarial relationship, say Kyle Gann and Jason Osborn of Winston & Strawn LLP.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control recently amended the general licenses that authorize dealings in bonds and securities otherwise prohibited by U.S. sanctions on Venezuela — apparently to target parties that would facilitate transactions between Petróleos de Venezuela SA securities holders and blocked individuals, say attorneys at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP.
Competing U.S. equity exchanges attract liquidity by offering rebates to orders that make liquidity, and charging fees to orders that take liquidity, which may distort brokers’ incentives against their fiduciary duty. Such maker-taker fees are likely to attract further scrutiny from regulators and courts, say Ilan Guedj and Zhong Zhang of Bates White LLC.
Although the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has removed some roadblocks to capital formation, it has not taken a fresh look at special purpose acquisition companies in over a decade — leaving operating companies that go public by merging with SPACs saddled with unnecessary restrictions, says Carol Anne Huff of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Along with the appointment of five new members and other personnel changes at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, last year saw fewer settled disciplinary orders made public by the board. The decline is consistent with the trend at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, says Robert Cox of Briglia Hundley PC.
Recent case law reveals that courts vary widely in their approaches to shifting the costs and fees incurred in responding to a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45 subpoena. Nonparties responding to such requests should consider certain district court trends, say attorneys at Pepper Hamilton LLP.
The Tenth Circuit's recent extraterritorial application of securities law against Traffic Monsoon LLC and its founder was arguably inconsistent with the statutory text being examined. This case could bring the crux of Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion in Morrison v. National Australia Bank back to the U.S. Supreme Court, says Timothy Work of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.
Series
"Echo of Its Time" is the story of Nebraska’s federal district court from statehood in 1867 to the demise of Prohibition in 1933. Professors John Wunder and Mark Scherer have written an objective, unsentimental and insightful history, layered with context and rich in character study, says U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp of the District of Nebraska.
The number of securities class action filings has remained high over the last year, and this trend is likely to continue, particularly if the markets remain volatile. But the good news for corporate America is that the number of dismissals also appears to be increasing, say attorneys at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
The Momentive decision in the Southern District of New York, which warned against allowing senior secured creditors to “completely disable debtors from restructuring” and “scavenge on all assets in bird’s-eye view,” may have the unintended consequence of doing just that, say Adam Shiff and Shai Schmidt of Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP.