All Regulatory Enforcement articles – Page 173
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Blog
SEC Halts Trading in Four Microcap Cos., Warns Investors About Ebola Scams
As also happened with recent natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, the Ebola outbreak that has captured the attention of the American public has become a possible tool of scam artists. The SEC suspended trading in four companies today -- Bravo Enterprises Ltd., Immunotech Laboratories Inc., Myriad ...
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Blog
Study Delves Into the Extensive Costs of Non-Compliance
What’s the true cost of non-compliance? A study by Thomson Reuters makes the case that fines, while significant and growing, may be the least of what should worry companies that run afoul of regulations. Broader financial implications can include the end of a business line, an inability to sell specific ...
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Blog
Justice Department Collected $24.7 Billion in Civil and Criminal Cases in 2014
The Department of Justice collected $24.7 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014, Attorney General Eric Holder announced in a video released today by the agency. That amount is “more than three times the $8 billion total the Department collected in 2013,” Holder ...
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Blog
2014 Marked Record Year for SEC Whistleblower Program
Fiscal year 2014 marked a historic year for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower program both in the number of tips it received and the number and dollar amount of whistleblower rewards the agency doled out, according to the SEC’s annual report to Congress. The SEC received 3,620 whistleblower tips ...
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Blog
Whitewashed Sanctions Report Costs Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi $565 Million
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ today reached a $315 million settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services—adding to the $250 million settlement it reached with DFS last year—for misleading regulators regarding the bank’s transactions with Iran, Sudan, Myanmar, and other sanctioned entities, bringing the bank’s total monetary penalty ...
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Article
A New Congress Will Bring New Chances to Alter Regulatory Landscape
The midterm elections brought a much stronger position in Congress to Republicans. While it may not be enough to give them the clout they need to make vast legislative changes, it has given them hold on the purse strings. With control of the budgeting process, and a potential new willingness ...
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SEC: Sending Saudi Officials on 'World Tour' Was FCPA Violation
In case there was any ambiguity that companies may not send foreign government officials on a "world tour" in order to secure business, the SEC made that clear yesterday. In an administrative proceeding filed yesterday, the SEC sanctioned two former employees in the Dubai office of U.S.-based FLIR Systems Inc. ...
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Blog
GAO Faults SEC for Internal Control Deficiencies
The message from the Government Accountability Office to the Securities and Exchange Commission: practice what you preach. A new, 176-page report from the government watchdog faults the agency for “a significant deficiency" in internal controls for its Investor Protection Fund.
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Former Law Firm I.T. Employee Pleads Guilty to Insider Trading
On September 14, 2014, the SEC filed an insider trading case against Dmitry Braverman, a senior information technology professional at law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The case was the SEC's second in a six month period alleging insider trading by law firm employees, and the SEC emphasized that ...
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Despite Commissioners' 'Dissent' in WSJ, SEC Argues For Fair Fund in SAC Case
As I discussed here last week, the SEC recently stated its intention to create a Fair Fund to distribute the funds from its $602 million insider trading settlement with SAC Capital to the people who were on the losing side of certain trades with SAC. This week, that decision was ...
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Blog
ESCO Pays $2 Million for Cuba Sanctions Violations
ESCO, a maker of metal parts for the mining, oil and gas, construction and other industries, today reached a $2 million settlement with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations. According to OFAC, ESCO appeared to have violated these reegulations when ...
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Blog
Banks Fined $4.3 Billion in Foreign-Exchange Probe
In a highly-anticipated series of settlements, regulators from the United Kingdom, United States, and Switzerland today slapped six banks with a total of $4.3 billion in fines to resolve charges that they manipulated the foreign exchange currency-trading market. JPMorgan and Citibank will pay the largest total in fines of $1 ...
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Article
What SEC Rulemaking Generates the Most Buzz?
What rule proposals and petitions before the SEC attract the most comment letters? Not surprisingly, investors and their advocates flooded the SEC’s mailbox with form letters supporting measures such as enhanced whistleblower protections and disclosure of political contributions. Less feedback came from corporate representatives concerned with new rules on the ...
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Blog
Getting to Know Attorney General Nominee Lynch
Following President Barack Obama’s nomination this week of Loretta Lynch as the next top chief of the Department of Justice, many in Corporate America may be wondering what the transition will mean for the agency’s enforcement priorities. “She has spent years in the trenches as a prosecutor, aggressively fighting terrorism, ...
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Blog
Study: Whistleblowers Are Even More Costly Than You Thought
When whistleblowers tip off the government with information about corporate wrongdoing, the damage can be more costly than otherwise expected, according to a new study. Even before the SEC started offering rewards for actionable information, the assistance of one or more tipsters in an enforcement action increased penalties by an ...
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ArticleAuto Industry Under Siege Over Defects, Mileage Ratings
Title: GrigorianA record number of product-safety recalls and massive civil and criminal penalties for compliance failures such as mis-stated mileage ratings have put all manufacturers and suppliers in the automotive industry on notice—and things are only just starting, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration bears down. “This level of ...
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Blog
Justice Scalia: Congress, Not SEC, Must Define Insider Trading Laws
On November 10, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Douglas Whitman's appeal of his August 2012 conviction on two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and two counts of securities fraud. Prosecutors in the SDNY had charged Whitman, a portfolio manager at Whitman Capital, LLC, with engaging ...
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Life Comes at You Fast, Part II: Eike Batista
"Life comes at you fast," doesn't it Eike Batista? (Just ask MC Hammer and Allen Stanford).It has been a very tough recent stretch for former Brazilian billionaire, Eike Batista. In 2012, shortly after he was described by Brazil's President, Dilma Rousseff, as "our standard, our expectation and, above all, the ...
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Blog
SEC Hits Companies for Stock Dilution Disclosure Failures
The SEC has issued enforcement actions against 10 companies that failed to make required disclosures about financing deals and other unregistered sales that diluted their stock. The companies all agreed to settle the SEC’s charges, and the agency assessed a total of $350,000 in penalties.
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Blog
Federal Regulators Probing Subprime Auto Loans
Ally Financial recently became the latest auto-lending company to face a government investigation into its subprime auto lending practices. In the last few months, GM Financial and Santander Consumer USA Holdings have received subpoenas from the Department of Justice for similar practices, raising questions among some as to whether the ...