Recent Enforcement Action
The requirement that financial firms preserve books and records is nothing new. But how do such firms keep track of employees’ communications on applications like Signal or WhatsApp?
Corporate officers and directors sometimes view having a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan as an impenetrable barrier to facing insider-trading charges. But a recent case announced by the SEC demonstrates that such plans are not bulletproof.[1] If an executive enters into such a plan while in possession of material nonpublic information, insider-trading charges could ensue.
On May 3, the SEC announced that the Cyber Unit in the Division of Enforcement is renamed the “Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit” and will expand by 20 positions to approximately 50 positions.[1] Regulation of digital assets has been a key initiative of SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who previously chaired the CFTC.
The press
On April 5, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board levied a $100,000 fine against Scott Marcello, the former Vice Chair of Audit at KPMG. The penalty is noteworthy for two reasons: (1) it’s the largest monetary penalty ever levied by the PCAOB in a case settled with an individual; and (2) it’s the first matter
On March 16, the SEC filed a municipal bond fraud case against Crosby Independent School District and its former CFO in a $20 million bond offering.[1] Crosby is a suburb of Houston, Texas. The SEC also charged the district’s outside auditor with improper professional conduct and suspended her from appearing or practicing before the
There has been lots of breathless commentary in the financial press and the blogosphere over the SEC’s August 2021 filing of an insider-trading case involving so-called “shadow trading.” Shadow trading as defined in a 2020 academic paper occurs when someone possessing material, nonpublic information (“MNPI”) obtained from his or her employer uses it to trade
It’s not a secret that, under the Biden administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission has prioritized enforcement of disclosures concerning Environmental, Social, and Governance Issues (ESG), going so far as to form an enforcement task force to examine misconduct related to these disclosures. Recently, the SEC’s Fort Worth regional office reportedly launched an investigation into
On December 20, 2021, the SEC[1] and DOJ[2] each announced fraud charges against five Russian nationals. The five defendants are charged with a multiyear scheme of hacking into service providers that help public companies make quarterly and annual filings with the SEC through the EDGAR filing system. By hacking the service providers, the
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission recently charged two individuals— Florida residents, Suyun Gu, and his friend, Yong Lee—for their involvement in allegedly fraudulent wash sales involving out-of-the-money options in “meme stocks.” So-called “meme stocks” [1] are stocks that were being actively promoted on social media in early 2021.
