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‘Enforcement 40’ for 2020
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Join the Securities Litigation and Enforcement Group on LinkedInSEC Official Decries Delay Tactics Used by Some Defense Lawyers – WSJ
Although Mr. Grewal said he welcomed zealous advocacy, he added that he was frequently hearing from SEC staff about behavior that crossed the line to what he called “gamesmanship.” “Too often, we see defense counsel—sometimes even including [SEC enforcement division] alums—engage in conduct that seems to have little purpose other than to delay our investigations,” […]
California law requiring women on corporate boards struck down – Los Angeles Times
A California law that required companies primarily based in the state to have women on their corporate boards has been ruled unconstitutional by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. In a 23-page ruling filed Friday, Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis found the state could not prove that the “use of a gender-based classification was necessary to […]
Binance Bulks Up on Lawyers Amid Crypto Market Meltdown
Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, is looking to hire more than 30 lawyers as the industry is in flux and its billionaire founder’s fortune shrinks. Most of the in-house legal and compliance counsel positions are listed on an online jobs board for Binance, which operates a remote workforce. The […]
U.S. Supreme Court to hear SEC bid to avoid challenge to in-house judges | Reuters
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the Securities and Exchange Commission’s bid to block a challenge to the constitutionality of its in-house tribunal brought by a Texas accountant who the agency punished after faulting her audits of publicly traded companies. The justices took up the SEC’s appeal of a lower court ruling […]
U.S. issues criminal charges in first cryptocurrency sanctions case – The Washington Post
In the ruling, the judge called cryptocurrency’s reputation for providing anonymity to users a myth. He added that while some legal experts argue that virtual moneys such as bitcoin, ethereum or Tether are not subject to U.S. sanctions laws because they are created and move outside the traditional financial system, recent action taken by the […]
Crypto Prices Move in Tandem With Traditional Markets, Punishing Investors – WSJ
The three-month correlation between the cryptocurrencies bitcoin and ether and the major U.S. stock indexes hit its highest level on record last week, according to Dow Jones Market Data. That level, between 0.67 and 0.78, is more than triple the average correlation between crypto and the S&P 500 from 2019 to 2021. A correlation of […]
Regulators anxious about stablecoins like tether after UST collapse
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen directly addressed the issue of both UST and tether “breaking the buck” this week. In a congressional hearing, Yellen said such assets don’t currently pose a systemic risk to financial stability — but suggested they eventually could. “I wouldn’t characterize it at this scale as a real threat to financial […]
Remarks at Securities Enforcement Forum West 2022 – Gurbir S. Grewal
None of this is new. About a decade ago, one of my predecessors—Rob Khuzami—gave a speech about questionable behavior by defense counsel in SEC investigations. From slow-rolling document productions as I just described—to representing multiple witnesses with adverse interests in the same matter—to kicking witnesses during testimony to get them to answer questions a certain […]
It Has Been Over 1.5 Years Since The SEC Has Brought An Individual FCPA Enforcement Action – FCPA Professor
The last individual FCPA enforcement action by the SEC occurred on October 14, 2020 (more than 1.5 years ago) – see here. This one year gap is the most significant gap in individual FCPA enforcement by the SEC in nearly a decade. Since late October, 2020 there have been six corporate SEC FCPA enforcement actions and […]
Moderna CFO Fired After First Day – Radical Compliance
Wild news in the Covid-19 world today: Vaccine maker Moderna has fired its new CFO one day into the job, after the executive’s previous employer disclosed in an SEC filing that it had launched an investigation into fraudulent financial reporting. Moderna disclosed the departure of Jorge Gomez in a terse press release issued Wednesday morning. […]