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‘Enforcement 40’ for 2020
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Join the Securities Litigation and Enforcement Group on LinkedInGhost of FTX, Dead Crypto Brands Haunt Formula One, MLB, NBA – Bloomberg
FTX’s sponsorship of top-tier racing team Mercedes, signed in September 2021, meant that its branding decorated the shirts, hats and other merchandise that the racing team sold throughout 2022. Fans have continued to wear the accessories they bought a year ago. The longevity of brand marketing is a scary reality for those who took money […]
Wall Street Law Firms Lift NYC Real Estate With Return to Office
Law firms are taking a lead role in filling New York City’s all-too-empty office buildings, thanks to an insistence that attorneys must stop working from home. The legal business rivals the financial sector as the most active Manhattan lessors in the past two quarters, real estate firm Savills said in a report. The two sectors […]
Who’s asking the tough questions?
US Assistant Attorney Danielle Sassoon is leading the government’s cross-examination of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Sassoon was a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, whom she said taught her “how to fire a pistol and a rifle, and made me feel like I had grit,” she wrote in 2016. “He thickened my skin, which was the […]
Cyber Chiefs Worry About Personal Liability as SEC Sues SolarWinds, Executive – WSJ
Monday’s lawsuit is the SEC’s first against a corporate security chief in relation to a hack. A year ago, the regulator served so-called Wells notices related to its investigation of the cyberattack to SolarWinds and Tim Brown, vice president of security and CISO, signaling intentions to pursue a civil case. Chief Financial Officer J. Barton […]
Sam Bankman-Fried’s Post-Collapse Media Blitz Has Clearly Backfired
A reminder, dear reader: If you’re accused of committing massive fraud and risk facing the rest of your life in prison, you should probably turn down that interview with “Good Morning America.” Such advice might’ve served Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced crypto founder who couldn’t keep quiet last year following the collapse of his FTX crypto […]
Bankman-Fried Had a Hairy Day in Court
Determined to highlight inconsistencies in the former crypto chief’s alternate history, the assistant U.S. attorney leveraged his prolific history of tweeting, interviewing and testifying before Congress about FTX’s purported greatness and safeness. She wanted to catch Bankman-Fried in a lie. After four hours she’d at least gotten the next-best thing: evidence he’s is a VERY […]
SEC Charges SolarWinds and Chief Information Security Officer with Fraud, Internal Control Failures
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Austin, Texas-based software company SolarWinds Corporation and its chief information security officer, Timothy G. Brown, for fraud and internal control failures relating to allegedly known cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities. The complaint alleges that, from at least its October 2018 initial public offering through at least its […]
Time to Say RIP to ESG? | The D&O Diary
It is no secret that I am skeptical of the usefulness of ESG as an analytic tool and even as an intellectual concept. As I have contended, there are fundamental disagreements about what ESG actually means, and the idea that it can be objectively measured and quantified is illusory, at best. Now, in an October […]
Overdue: Statement of Dissent on LBRY from Commissioner Hester M. Peirce
Earlier this year, LBRY tweeted: “It’s the year 2028, hundreds of thousands of Americans have been jailed for using illegally cryptocurrency instead of CBDCs, and Hester Pierce [sic] is still just writing dissenting memos.” Although I will be tending bees, not writing dissents, in 2028, I think often about the crux of that criticism and […]
Trying to halt the SEC
Some of the SEC rule proposals generating the most withering criticism are among those that would have the biggest impact on financial advisors. But the widespread opposition won’t necessarily influence the SEC to revise them substantially before they become final regulations. Financial industry trade associations, bipartisan lawmakers on Capitol Hill and even some investor advocates […]