When the Supreme Court ruled last year in Jarkesy that the Securities and Exchange Commission can no longer impose civil monetary penalties in its juryless home-court administrative tribunals, a consensus quickly emerged that the agency can still use those administrative tribunals to prosecute cases that threaten only non-monetary “equitable” sanctions—such as industry bars and suspensions, disgorgement, and cease-and-desist orders. That…
“There has never been anything this dramatic or far-reaching as what you’re seeing now,” said Joel Seligman, a law professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis and SEC historian. The agency has to proceed carefully, Seligman and four other academics warned in a public letter published this month. Staffing cuts and fewer eyes on the markets didn’t bode…
The Securities and Exchange Commission published a final rule last week reversing a 15-year-old policy that permitted the director of enforcement to issue formal orders of investigation. The rule returns the SEC to its pre-2009 methodology, in which requests for formal orders of investigation must be presented to and approved by a vote of the commissioners. The rule, issued March…
Artificial intelligence has been a focus topic for the market for several quarters. Given the heightened interest, have more S&P 500 companies than normal commented on “AI” during their earnings conference calls for the fourth quarter? The answer is yes. FactSet Document Search (which allows users to search for key words or phrases across multiple document types) was used to…
But even if state regulators are hemmed in by new legislation, that legislation would not limit the ability of state Attorneys General to file lawsuits alleging fraud by crypto-related businesses. State AGs previously brought those lawsuits when the SEC’s “regulation by enforcement” crusade was in full swing. In 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit alleging that…
Fried Frank announced today that Dabney O’Riordan has joined the firm as a partner in both the Litigation Department and the Asset Management Practice, based in Washington, DC. She joins from Quinn Emanuel, where she was a partner in the firm’s securities enforcement defense practice. O’Riordan was the longest-serving leader of the Asset Management Unit of the US Securities and…