While sophisticated participants in private markets have historically been seen as capable of bargaining for information or withstanding losses better than mom-and-pop investors, current events signal that the U.S. Securities...more
5/9/2023
/ Best Practices ,
Corporate Governance ,
Data Protection ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Early Stage Companies ,
Enforcement ,
Entrepreneurs ,
Investment ,
Investors ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Startups ,
White Collar Crimes
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Settlements Timeline serves as an interactive compilation of select CFTC guidance, enforcement actions, and speeches relating to the application of the federal securities laws...more
The Digital Asset SEC Timeline serves as an interactive compilation of select SEC guidance, enforcement actions, and speeches relating to the application of the federal securities laws to digital assets. Beginning with the...more
The Digital Asset SEC Timeline serves as an interactive compilation of select SEC guidance, enforcement actions, and speeches relating to the application of the federal securities laws to digital assets. Beginning with the...more
The Digital Asset SEC Timeline serves as an interactive compilation of select SEC guidance, enforcement actions, and speeches relating to the application of the federal securities laws to digital assets. Beginning with the...more
The Digital Asset SEC Timeline serves as an interactive compilation of select SEC guidance, enforcement actions, and speeches relating to the application of the federal securities laws to digital assets. Beginning with the...more
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Settlements Timeline serves as an interactive compilation of select CFTC guidance, enforcement actions, and speeches relating to the application of the federal securities laws...more
The staffs of the Division of Trading and Markets (Division) of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) (collectively, the “Regulators”) published a joint...more
7/18/2019
/ Books & Records ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Customer Protection Rule ,
Digital Assets ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investment Management ,
Joint Statements ,
Over The Counter Derivatives (OTC) ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
SIPA
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub) published a framework on April 3, 2019, for analyzing whether a digital asset is offered and sold as a security...more
The end of the year has been a very busy time for the SEC in the digital asset space. From speeches to the issuance of joint statements to enforcement actions, there are many things to highlight, discuss and consider. This...more
12/21/2018
/ Blockchain ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Howey ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investment Company Act of 1940 ,
Investor Protection ,
Investors ,
Popular ,
Registration Requirement ,
Section 5 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Token Sales
In a flurry of enforcement activity in the digital asset space, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a self-regulatory organization for broker-dealers,...more
10/8/2018
/ Blockchain ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Companies ,
Investment Company Act of 1940 ,
Popular ,
Regulation D ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities
On August 7, Judge Richard Seeborg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied in part a motion to dismiss (the “Order”) sought by the defendants in In Re Tezos Securities Litigation (the “Tezos...more
8/31/2018
/ Blockchain ,
Browsewrap Agreement ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Contract Terms ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Forum Selection ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Personal Jurisdiction ,
Popular ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Securities Litigation ,
Token Sales ,
Virtual Currency
During a speech in San Francisco last week at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, William Hinman, Director of the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), provided some welcome...more
6/25/2018
/ Bitcoin ,
Certificate of Deposit ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Ether ,
Howey ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investment Advisers Act of 1940 ,
Investment Company Act of 1940 ,
Investment Contract ,
Investors ,
Securities Act of 1933 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Token Sales
On Monday, April 2, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged two co-founders of Centra Tech, Inc. (Centra), a purported financial services company headquartered in Florida, with conducting a fraudulent...more
On February 6, 2018, the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs conducted a hearing entitled “Virtual Currencies: The Oversight Role of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S....more
2/7/2018
/ Bitcoin ,
CFTC ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Entrepreneurs ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinTech ,
FSOC ,
Howey ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
IOSCO ,
Jurisdiction ,
New Guidance ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Virtual Currency
Just like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is actively policing the virtual currency market. On January 24, 2018, the CFTC announced an enforcement action against...more
On Friday, December 1, 2017, the SEC filed an emergency action in federal district court in Brooklyn alleging that Dominic Lacroix and Sabrina Paradis-Roger, both from Quebec, Canada, raised approximately $15 million in a...more
12/4/2017
/ Asset Freeze ,
Canada ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investors ,
Notice of Emergency Action ,
Real Estate Investments ,
Scams ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices ,
Unregistered Securities
On July 25, 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) released groundbreaking materials relating to blockchain tokens. These materials provide significant and welcome insight to the SEC’s and its staff’s thinking...more
7/27/2017
/ Alternative Trading System (ATS) ,
Blockchain ,
Digital Currency ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investment Advisers Act of 1940 ,
Investment Company Act of 1940 ,
Investor Advisory Committee ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Unregistered Securities ,
Virtual Currency
On June 30, 2017, the SEC and the U.S. Attorney brought parallel civil and criminal fraud charges against Renwick Haddow, the owner of an unregistered broker-dealer entity named InCrowd Equity Inc., and two corporate entities...more
7/14/2017
/ Asset Freeze ,
Bitcoin ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
False Statements ,
Financial Crimes ,
HSBC ,
Investment Fraud ,
Investors ,
Popular ,
Scams ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
U.S. Attorney ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices ,
Unregistered Brokers
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced two administrative settlements in June with a fund administrator that provided accounting and fund administration services to several private funds based on its alleged...more
The U.S. Department of Justice issued a Memorandum to all U.S. Attorneys and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Department of Labor on December 17, 2015 to bolster the federal government’s arsenal...more
Federal authorities announced this week a settlement with Ripple Labs Inc. and its subsidiary, XRP Fund II, resolving an investigation by FinCEN and the Department of Justice into violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. ...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) touted an expansive regulatory agenda at this year’s “SEC Speaks” conference, held February 20-21, 2015, in Washington, D.C. At this year’s Speaks, SEC representatives...more
The New York State Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”) released its revised proposed BitLicense regulatory framework earlier today. Once the revised framework is published in the New York State Register, it will...more
In United States v. Newman, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dealt a substantial blow to federal prosecutors’ epic crackdown on insider trading by raising the bar for the government’s burden of proof in...more
12/17/2014
/ Enforcement Actions ,
Illegal Tipping ,
Insider Trading ,
Material Nonpublic Information ,
Personal Benefit ,
Popular ,
Portfolio Managers ,
Rule 10b-5 ,
Securities ,
Securities Fraud ,
US v Newman