Subscribe
‘Enforcement 40’ for 2020
Our Sponsors
Join Us On LinkedIn
Join the Securities Litigation and Enforcement Group on LinkedInFTX-Gisele Partnership Highlights Risks of Celebrity ESG Roles
When lawmakers and regulators who wrangle over environmental, social and governance issues traveled through Union Station in Washington this summer, they likely passed beneath a billboard showcasing the new ESG advisor for the cryptocurrency platform FTX: Gisele Bundchen. After its catastrophic collapse in November, investors sued not only FTX but its supermodel backer as well, […]
Florida’s Politicians: Don’t Say ESG | The D&O Diary
On December 1, 2022, in a press release full of statements critical of the investment firm BlackRock and its CEO, Larry Fink, Jimmy Patronis, the Chief Financial Officer of Florida, announced that the Florida Treasury would begin divesting $2 billion of Florida state assets currently under management by BlackRock. The statement makes it clear that […]
Regulators’ Take On ESG Investing | The D&O Diary
As readers of this blog well know, ESG is one of the hot topics in the investment and financial world these days. ESG is also very much on the mind of regulators as well, as two recent developments show. First, on November 22, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor issued updated rules expressly allowing plan […]
SEC Charges Goldman Sachs Asset Management for Failing to Follow its Policies and Procedures Involving ESG Investments
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Goldman Sachs Asset Management, L.P. (GSAM) for policies and procedures failures involving two mutual funds and one separately managed account strategy marketed as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investments. To settle the charges, GSAM agreed to pay a $4 million penalty. The SEC’s order finds that, from April 2017 […]
ESG Foes in States, Congress Ready Attacks on ‘Woke’ Investing
Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the likely chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia are among several Republican officials with new ammunition to fight the Securities and Exchange Commission and investment firms on ESG. McHenry and Morrisey have yet to speak in depth about what’s next […]
Wood Products Company Hit with ESG “Greenwashing” Securities Suit | The D&O Diary
The hot button topic in both the investing world and the D&O insurance world these days is “ESG.” Setting aside the fundamental problem that nobody actually knows what ESG is, there is the inextricably related problem that the D&O claims risk related to ESG is fundamentally misunderstood. The current basic premise in the D&O insurance […]
ESG Cases Remain Enforcement Priority at SEC, Top Official Says
The SEC remains committed to rooting out wrongdoing by companies and investment funds that mislead investors about environmental, social and governance issues, a senior agency official said Friday. The Securities and Exchange Commission will continue to file enforcement lawsuits while it works to issue tougher rules to police climate disclosures and other ESG reporting, said […]
Republicans to probe Wall Street’s climate friendly investments – The Washington Post
Less than a week before the midterm elections, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are already gearing up to investigate what they see as “woke capitalism,” a reference to Wall Street firms that treat climate change as an economic risk. Polls suggest the GOP will retake the House, and Republicans there are preparing to grill the […]
Suits Targeting Firms Seeking to Boost Minorities Highlight ESG Risks | The D&O Diary
As I have previously noted (most recently here), something of an anti-ESG backlash has started to take shape, at least in certain quarters. Legislatures in several states have passed legislation prohibiting state pension funds from investing in ES- focused investments or prohibiting the state from doing business with companies that boycott certain industries. The backlash […]
Proposed health warning label for all ESG funds not in the impact investing space | Douglas Chia, LinkedIn
Proposed health warning label for all ESG funds not in the impact investing space: “This fund was not created with the goal of cooling the planet, saving the whales, combating racism, or having any other positive impact on the environment or society, either in the short or long term. Any positive impact this fund does […]