All articles by Bruce Carton – Page 5
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Blog
Rep. Garrett 'distressed' by SEC's faith in AP process
At a recent conference, an SEC official defended the agency's use of administrative proceedings and flatly dismissed the notion that the SEC was using APs in order to gain a “home court advantage.” Rep. Scott Garrett didn't like that one bit.
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SEC dusts off Reg AC to charge former Deutsche Bank analyst
Today, the SEC announced that it has filed a settled administrative proceeding against Charles P. Grom, a former Deutsche Bank research analyst, for allegedly certifying a rating on a stock that was inconsistent with his personal view. The SEC alleged that Grom's conduct violated the analyst certification requirement of Regulation ...
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SEC Inspector General report finds no evidence of ALJ bias
In a recently-issued report, the SEC's Office of Inspector General concluded that there was no evidence to support allegations of bias on the part of Administrative Law Judges in the SEC's administrative proceedings. The allegation had surfaced in a May 2015 article in The Wall Street Journal.
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SFO Director David Green’s term extended for two more years
David Green, director of the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office, has had his contract extended by two years, through April 2018. Green is credited with leading a change in the SFO’s approach to prosecuting cases and delivering the first U.K. deferred prosecution agreement and the first convictions under the Bribery Act ...
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SEC Names O’Riordan and Patel Associate Dirs. for Enforcement in L.A.
C. Dabney O’Riordan and Alka Patel have been named Associate Directors for Enforcement in the SEC's Los Angeles Regional Office, where they will oversee that office’s enforcement’s efforts in southern California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii.
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CFTC Still Waiting for Its Whistleblower Program to Bear Significant Results
After four years, the CFTC has so far paid out just two whistleblower awards totaling $530,000 while incurring millions of dollars in expenses. The agency’s inspector general stated recently that it has opened a review to “to determine the reason, if any, for the limited number of CFTC whistleblower awards ...
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'You Get a Refund! You Get a Refund! You Get a Refund...!'
The SEC might be feeling like a little like Oprah lately, handing out refunds the way Oprah hands out cars. "You get a refund! You get a refund! YOU get a refund!"
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DVR Alert: ABC's 'Madoff' Miniseries Airs February 3-4
On February 3-4, "Madoff," ABC's miniseries on Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, will be aired at 8 pm Eastern. Madoff stars Richard Dreyfuss as Bernie Madoff and Blythe Danner as his wife, Ruth.
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Dawn Bennett Refuses to Attend 'Kangaroo' AP, SEC Proceeds Without Her
Yesterday, a financial advisor who is the respondent in an SEC administrative proceeding announced that she is employing a new tactic to challenge the SEC's controversial in-house court: refusing to attend.
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Level Global Case Continues to Rewind
Watching developments in the Level Global insider trading case -- which fell apart after the Second Circuit's landmark decision in Newman resulted in the conviction of its co-founder and another defendant being overturned -- feels like watching a movie rewind.
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SEC Invests $18 Million to Further Modernize SEC.gov
The SEC's website, SEC.gov, is one of the federal government’s busiest websites, reportedly serving up more than 562 million page views every month. Earlier this month, Accenture Federal Services announced that the SEC has awarded it a $17.9 million contract to modernize and “create an improved user experience” for users ...
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SEC Awards $700,000 to Whistleblower Who Was Company Outsider
Image: It took over five years, but we finally have a success story in the “professional whistleblower” area. The SEC has awarded more than $700,000 to an industry expert (a company outsider) who conducted a detailed analysis that led to a successful SEC enforcement action. Sean McKessy, chief of the ...
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2016 SEC Trial Scorecard Update: Agency Remains Undefeated After Two Trials
In the SEC's second federal court trial to reach a verdict in FY 2016, a federal jury in Pennsylvania found in favor of the SEC. The jury found Nan Huang, a former data analyst at Capital One, liable for engaging in a creative insider trading scheme that involved searching a ...
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From Bad to Worse -- and Finally to Prison -- for Apple Day-Trader Sued by SEC
I always try to warn people not to get themselves thrown in prison by obstructing justice in SEC investigations. No really, I do! They just don't listen.
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New Report Shows SEC Bringing More, Larger APs Against Public Companies
A new report offers some interesting angles on the SEC's enforcement actions against public companies since 2010. Among other things, the report shows that since FY 2010, SEC enforcement has undergone a "dramatic shift" in its choice of venue for bringing cases against public company defendants, with a significant move ...
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SEC Settles for Two-Year Bar in Steve Cohen 'Failure to Supervise' Case
The SEC announced today that it has settled its high-profile lawsuit against hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen, founder of SAC Capital. Under the Order resolving the case, Cohen will be prohibited from supervising funds that manage outside money until 2018.
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Interview With Former KPMG Partner Scott London on Why He Broke Bad
Today, NPR's Planet Money posted an interesting interview with former KPMG Partner Scott London about his insider trading ordeal, the famous "envelope of cash" photo, and why London ever agreed to become involved in the insider trading scheme in the first place.
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Former Rep. Michael Oxley, Co-Author of "SOX," Dies at Age 71
Image: Former U.S. Rep. Michael G. Oxley, co-author of the landmark Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), died Jan. 1, 2016, at age 71. SOX was enacted July 30, 2002, in response to a series of massive accounting scandals involving public companies such as Enron and Worldcom. In March 2012, Oxley ...
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SEC.gov's Top 10 News Stories, Search Terms in 2015
As it similarly did at the end of 2014, the SEC announced "Top 10" lists this week for the most popular search terms and news releases on the SEC website (SEC.gov) in 2015.
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Second Circuit Denies Rajat Gupta's Last Gasp Effort to Vacate Conviction
His imminent release from prison has not stopped former McKinsey & Company CEO and Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta from aggressively seeking to get his conviction vacated under the Second Circuit's landmark Newman decision. This week, the Second Circuit rejected Gupta's last gasp appeal in the case.