Regulatory Enforcement

It’s a question often on the mind of corporate counsels: What is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest thinking on enforcement actions? The Commission’s interest in corporate crackdown shifts from time to time, as budgets rise and fall or new scandals emerge and recede. Since the debut of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2003, the trend […]

A Securities and Exchange Commission pilot program intended to strengthen the hand of its enforcement staff and speed the resolution of cases involving fines against corporations is raising concerns among defense lawyers about their ability to negotiate settlements. As Compliance Week previously reported in April, the SEC said in some cases where a fine may […]

In the latest of our regular Q&As, we talk to Claudius Modesti, enforcement, investigations director for the PCAOB. An index of previous conversations is available here. How big is the enforcement staff at the PCAOB? Right now, we have about 30 professionals in our group, including lawyers, accountants, paralegals, and support staff. We are hiring […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission has levied its first corporate penalties in cases of stock option backdating, portending bad news for other companies embroiled in the widespread scandal. Brocade Communications and Mercury Interactive agreed to pay $7 million and $28 million, respectively, to settle civil charges brought by the SEC related to the backdated stock […]

A Washington state judge has delayed litigation in a stock-option backdating case pending the outcome of parallel federal lawsuits, giving defendants hope that state courts will not march in lockstep to follow a Delaware Chancery Court decision that state and federal suits could be heard at the same time. The Delaware case, Ryan v. Gifford, […]

A recent flurry of insider-trading cases brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission have demonstrated that the regulator has indeed stepped up its enforcement efforts in this area. Several weeks ago, the SEC filed charges against former Oracle vice president Christopher Balkenhol. According to the Commission, Balkenhol learned about secret merger negotiations from his wife, […]

One newly noted, and well received, trend in corporate litigation these days is a decline in securities fraud class-action lawsuits. But legal experts warn that another ominous trend in securities litigation is brewing to pick up the slack: globalization. More and more overseas investors are participating in U.S. securities class actions—a trend that isn’t likely […]

One newly noted, and well received, trend in corporate litigation these days is a decline in securities fraud class-action lawsuits. But legal experts warn that another ominous trend in securities litigation is brewing to pick up the slack: globalization. More and more overseas investors are participating in U.S. securities class actions—a trend that isn’t likely […]

Supporting actors can be just as vital to the success of a corporate fraud as they are to a film. So it’s no surprise that they’re attracting a lot of attention these days. Earlier this month the Securities and Exchange Commission settled aiding-and-abetting charges against a distributor for videogame maker Take Two Interactive Software for […]

An innovative defense against mail and wire fraud that sprung three former Merrill Lynch executives from prison last year has figured prominently again in a fraud case against a former Enron executive and may end up helping defense strategies for many more white-collar crime suspects. Christopher Calger, a former vice president at Enron North America, […]