Five disgorgement awards to the SEC totaling nearly $43 million in a penny-stock market manipulation case were proper, the First Circuit ruled Thursday. The scheme’s internal records support each individual defendant’s share of responsibility, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said. The case will go back to the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts to…
Questions whether two sets of circumstances are or are not interrelated are among the most vexing insurance coverage disputes out there. These questions often are even more fraught because of the significant amounts of money that can depend on the answer. All of these considerations were in play in a recent Fourth Circuit decision in which the appellate court concluded…
The SEC’s practice of forcing defendants to relinquish profits from illegal activities, even when there’s no apparent harm to investors, is under scrutiny again as influential groups urge the US Supreme Court to take up a case that could limit the Wall Street cop’s powers. The stakes of the fight were laid out in briefs filed this month supporting petitioner…
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s chances of getting a fresh trial seem to be dwindling, judging by the pointed questions of an appellate court during a hearing in Manhattan on Tuesday. Bankman-Fried’s lawyer Alexandra Shapiro told the trio of Second Circuit judges that the high-profile trial was “fundamentally unfair” because her client was prevented by District Judge Lewis Kaplan from…
In a decisive move on Oct. 3, the Sixth Circuit unanimously vacated the district court’s order, ruling that FirstEnergy’s internal investigation materials are covered by attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine. The court affirmed the importance of attorney-client privilege, saying it “is the oldest of the privileges for confidential communications known to the common law.” It further cited the Supreme…
A federal appeals court on Friday said it was pausing its consideration of legal challenges against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate regulations until the Wall Street regulator decides whether it plans either to change them or to defend them in court, court papers showed. Under former President Joe Biden, the SEC adopted rules requiring publicly traded companies to…
Peloton Interactive must face a lawsuit claiming it defrauded shareholders by masking excess inventory of its home exercise equipment as the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic passed, a divided federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday. Reversing a lower court ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said shareholders can try to prove that the maker of stationary…
Ripple Labs Inc. and the SEC will abandon an appellate fight over sales of the blockchain company’s XRP token now that they can’t settle the case, they told the Second Circuit Thursday. The parties agreed to dismiss the SEC’s appeal and Ripple’s cross-appeal pending in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The stipulation also resolves the civil…
Defendants in Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions will still contend with a controversial “no-deny” policy when settling with the agency in court, after a panel of Ninth Circuit judges signed off on the practice. The regulator has historically permitted the targets of court actions to settle without admitting wrongdoing, while requiring that they also not publicly deny the allegations,…
The SEC’s first enforcement action targeting an employee’s use of nonpublic information to trade in a competitor’s stock never should have gone to a jury, a former biotechnology executive told the Ninth Circuit. Medivation Inc.’s insider trading policy permitted the transactions at the center of the civil trial, “meaning there was no duty not to trade,” Matthew Panuwat said May…