Carolyn McNiven has joined law firm DLA Piper as a partner in its San Francisco office. The firm announced today that McNiven has joined its Litigation practice, and her practice will focus on anti-kickback investigations and criminal prosecutions, Stark Act investigations, and white collar-related litigation including FCPA, fraud, tax and securities matters.
Previously, McNiven served as Deputy Chief in the Financial Fraud and Special Prosecutions Section for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
The SEC issued a report today under Section 21(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 “cautioning credit rating agencies about deceptive ratings conduct and the importance of sufficient internal controls over the policies, procedures, and methodologies the firms use to determine credit ratings.” Full details are available in this post on my Enforcement Action blog over at Compliance Week.
Christopher Conte will join law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office. The firm announced today that Conte will join its Securities Enforcement and Litigation practice, and also work with the firm’s FCPA and White-Collar Criminal Defense practice.
Conte is currently an Associate Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, where he has served for over 17 years. While at the SEC, he led investigations and enforcement actions in areas including accounting fraud and disclosure violations, including options backdating misconduct, illicit payments under the FCPA, unlawful IPO allocation and manipulative short-selling practices, and insider trading by corporate insiders and market, legal, and accounting professionals. Conte will begin practicing at Steptoe in September.
Throughout the week, I collect the most interesting columns and blog posts from around the web on the subjects of SEC enforcement and securities litigation. A digest of my picks for the week ending August 27 is available in this post on my Enforcement Action blog over at Compliance Week.
In the UK, the Financial Services Authority is now working closely with the Serious Organised Crime Agency following evidence that organized criminals are becoming increasingly involved in financial frauds such as insider trading. The Financial Times reports that criminal groups view insider trading as lucrative and, despite increased enforcement by the FSA in the last years or so, low risk. Full details are available in this post on my Enforcement Action blog over at Compliance Week.
As the 797 current members of the Securities Docket Securities Litigation and Enforcement Group on LinkedIn.com know, the group has a very useful news feed that is essentially a firehose of information from 30 select blogs and other sources about securities litigation and SEC enforcement.
LinkedIn limits the number of sources to 30, which encourages the exercise of periodically going through the list to add great new sources we have come across, and to remove others. We updated the list of feeds today, and listed below are the outstanding blogs, websites and other feeds that currently flow into the “Discussions” tab of the Securities Litigation and Enforcement Group on LinkedIn.com.
As flagged below, the five new additions to the list are:
The complete list of 30 sites is below. Please submit your suggestions for future additions to this list in the comments or send them to us via email. Thanks!
Former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden used to say that it was his goal that securities fraudsters be “left naked, homeless, and without wheels.” The DOJ was able to pull off the “without wheels” part recently in its case against Kenneth E. Marsh. Full details are available in this post on my Enforcement Action blog over at Compliance Week.
This webcast will address the likely impacts of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on the regulatory landscape, corporate governance practices, financial reporting and accounting, among other topics.
Our panel includes Salvatore Graziano, a partner at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, and Peter J. Henning, Professor of Law at Wayne State University Law School and columnist for The New York Times‘ Dealbook (“White Collar Watch”), where he follows issues involving securities law and white-collar crime. Please join us as we discuss the Act’s significant impact on public companies and investor protections, and what that means for institutional portfolios.
This free webcast is scheduled for Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 2 p.m. Eastern. To attend, please register below.
The SEC is seeking candidates for the key position of Chief Counsel in its Enforcement Division–a position that has not been available for 17 years. Full details are available in this post on my Enforcement Action blog over at Compliance Week.
I’ve written here previously about “sleeper” provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act that may have major consequences, and here is one more: Under Section 342 of the Act, each of the 30 federal financial agencies and departments–including the SEC–must establish an “Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.” Full details are available in this post on my Enforcement Action blog over at Compliance Week.
