On April 3, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced its first enforcement action against a registered investment adviser (RIA) with no ties to a broker-dealer regarding so-called “off-channel”...more
4/10/2024
/ Broker-Dealer ,
Electronic Communications ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fund Managers ,
Investigations ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Management ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Registered Investment Advisors ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Regulation ,
Securities Violations
Key Points - In a thorough decision, a federal district judge in New York largely denied Coinbase’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in a case brought by the SEC. Applying the plaintiff-friendly standards required at the...more
Last month, the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced that it is considering new procedures under which it would publicly identify firms that are under investigation as soon as the investigation has been...more
4/1/2024
/ Cross-Border ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Enforcement ,
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ,
FSMA ,
Investigations ,
Notice Requirements ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
UK ,
Willful Misconduct
Key Points - Last week, the SEC announced settlements with 16 broker-dealers, dually registered broker-dealers and investment advisers, and affiliated investment advisers in connection with their failures to maintain and...more
Key Points - In SEC v. Terraform, the court has granted summary judgment for the SEC on its claim that the defendants offered and sold unregistered securities in the form of “crypto assets.” This comes amidst the SEC...more
1/15/2024
/ Bitcoin ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Howey ,
Ripple ,
Securities Act of 1933 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Tokens ,
Security-Based Swaps ,
Stablecoins ,
Summary Judgment
Key Point -
Just over two weeks after the SEC announced the settlement of its first NFT enforcement action against Impact Theory, on September 13, 2023, the SEC announced its second NFT enforcement action against SC2, the...more
Key Points -
On August 28, 2023, the SEC charged Impact Theory, LLC, a media company with an unregistered securities offering through its sale of NFTs. This marks the first time that the SEC has brought an enforcement action...more
8/30/2023
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Enforcement ,
Ethereum ,
Investment Contract ,
Investors ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Nonprofits ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Litigation ,
Settlement ,
Unregistered Securities
No financial services firm or professional welcomes an investigation by a regulator, let alone enforcement action. Each investigation proceeds differently depending on the target of the investigation, the subject matter and...more
Key Point -
Just shy of three weeks after Judge Torres held that the digital asset XRP is not itself a security,1 Judge Rakoff held that the SEC had adequately pled that certain digital assets, such as the UST and LUNA...more
Key Points -
A judge in the Southern District of New York recently held that (i) the crypto asset XRP is not, on its own, a security and, (ii) as a result, the determination of whether an offer or sale of XRP required SEC...more
Key Points -
SEC Enforcement and PCAOB Enforcement both are pursuing more significant sanctions against auditors, particularly with respect to civil money penalties.
Expect 2023 enforcement against auditors to focus...more
Key Points -
On March 1, 2023, the SEC and DOJ filed insider trading charges against a public company executive alleging he traded pursuant to 10b5-1 trading plans he adopted while he was in possession of material...more
Key Points -
The recent indictment and multiple regulatory enforcement actions brought against a crypto trader alleged to have committed market manipulation highlight the ongoing fractured oversight of the crypto markets...more
2/3/2023
/ CFTC ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) ,
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Howey ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Swaps ,
Wire Fraud
Key Points -
The SEC and the FCA each publish annual reports, which can offer a useful insight into their enforcement actions.
The data in the reports only represents a snapshot of the regulators’ activities, but is...more
On May 3, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it was nearly doubling the size of the Enforcement Division’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit in order to pursue cases involving crypto asset offerings,...more
Materiality in the context of the federal securities laws has been a topic of repeated focus by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the courts over the years. That attention, however, has not necessarily produced...more
The New Year Brings a New Enforcement Focus on Emerging Technology -
In 2021, newly confirmed members of the Biden administration set the stage for increased enforcement activity, surging resources to investigations and...more
Key Points -
The DOJ and CFTC have filed insider trading charges against a Houston-based energy trader for allegedly disclosing confidential information to a third party who then used the information to trade profitably....more
As previously reported, in August 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint in SEC v. Panuwat, initiating the first enforcement action seeking to proscribe as prohibited insider trading the practice...more
Key Points -
The SEC has charged App Annie, Inc. and its former CEO with violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5, which constitute the primary mechanism for enforcing insider trading violations.
This...more
Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint in federal court in California premised on the novel legal theory that the insider trading laws apply where an insider uses confidential information...more
8/25/2021
/ Acquisitions ,
Confidential Information ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Insider Trading ,
Material Nonpublic Information ,
Misappropriation ,
Private Funds ,
Rule 10b-5 ,
Scienter ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud
Key Points -
The SEC and the FCA each publish annual reports on their enforcement actions.
Whilst enforcement data only shows a snapshot of the regulators’ activities, there is much to be learned from these reports,...more
Amendments Come on the Heels of Supreme Court Decisions on SEC Disgorgement -
On January 1, 2021, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Embedded in the NDAA’s more than 1,400 pages is Section...more
- The OCIE of the SEC highlights that responses to COVID-19 present important regulatory and compliance issues for SEC registrants, including “heightened risks of misconduct” tied to recent market volatility.
- The Risk...more
8/21/2020
/ Asset Management ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Business Continuity Plans ,
Business Operations ,
Compliance ,
Conflicts of Interest ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Protection ,
Fees ,
Financial Transactions ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Fraud ,
Investment Management ,
Investors ,
OCIE ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Popular ,
Remote Working ,
Risk Alert ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Supervision
- In the age of broad corporate teleworking brought on by COVID-19, OCIE of the SEC has observed during recent examinations that investment advisers, broker-dealers and investment companies are subject to an increased threat...more
7/16/2020
/ Broker-Dealer ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Homeland Security Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) ,
Incident Response Plans ,
Investment Management ,
Malware ,
OCIE ,
Popular ,
Ransomware ,
Risk Alert ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)