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But behind the spectacle is the reality that criminal prosecutions in Silicon Valley are a rarity. Even a guilty verdict against Ms. Holmes is unlikely to change that. Federal prosecutors in Northern California took on only 57 white-collar crime cases in the 2020 fiscal year, down from 94 in 2019, according to researchers. Although 2021 […]
One thing LTSE wants to change is the public market’s focus on short-term results, which Ries believes negatively impacts innovation…. Instead, LTSE would have rules to encourage companies to focus on long-term innovation instead of quarterly earnings reports. Not only would the exchange request limits on executive bonuses for meeting short-term goals, but it would […]
Andreessen Horowitz will soon cease to be a venture capital firm, veering away from the majority of its Sand Hill Road neighbors in Silicon Valley to instead become a registered investment advisor, or RIA. via Andreessen Horowitz says it will no longer be a venture capital firm.
Yet a worrying sign is the shrinking of so-called seed deals, essentially the earliest investments in startups. The number of these deals has fallen steadily, dropping to 882 in the fourth quarter from more than 1,500 three years earlier, PitchBook says. Venture capitalists typically follow the trajectory of tech stocks, as they did in early […]
The two offices are vastly different both in culture and their approach to white-collar crime. New York prosecutors often deploy techniques associated with organized crime investigations, including wiretapping, executing search warrants and flipping suspects to testify against bigger targets. Prosecutors in San Francisco, meanwhile, typically will issue a grand jury subpoena and request emails from […]
At a recent panel organized by San Francisco’s Federal Bar Association, the San Francisco Regional Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jina Choi, confirmed that the agency continues to focus on investor fraud in the pre-IPO private market space. Highlighting enforcement actions against the non-public Zenefits, Credit Karma, and Theranos[1], Ms. Choi reiterated […]
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Leslie Caldwell was in San Francisco Thursday to give a keynote speech at the Securities Enforcement Forum West, a gathering of federal law enforcement officials and white-collar attorneys—and many, like Caldwell, who have been on both sides. Caldwell, who heads the U.S. Justice Department’s 600-lawyer Criminal Division, sat down with The […]
Whether the Valley lawyers’ message for SEC officials has any impact remains to be seen. At least one SEC watcher, however, expects the agency’s interest in transactions involving private companies to grow. Fenwick & West’s Michael Dicke, the former head of enforcement in the SEC’s San Francisco office, said after the event that he thinks […]
In a sobering speech Thursday at Stanford Law School, Securities and Exchange Committee head Mary Jo White warned that the pressure on companies to pass the vaunted $1 billion valuation mark—and to hold onto their capital once they reach it—has led start-ups to be less than transparent with investors and to dodge federal regulations. via […]
The head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ventured deep into Silicon Valley Thursday to warn the tech community and its investors to be wary of unicorns. Mary Jo White, speaking at Stanford Law School in California, was referring not to the mythical horse-like creature but to non-public startups valued at more than $1 […]