All articles by Bruce Carton – Page 4
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Blog
SEC nominee confirmation watch: Nothing to see here!
Three more weeks have now passed since a supposedly "routine" April 7 vote in Congress to approve SEC commissioner nominees Lisa Fairfax and Hester Peirce was abruptly terminated without a vote even taking place. Surely the Senate has gotten its act together by now to confirm (or not) President Obama's ...
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Law firms under cyber-siege: now what?
The past month has presumably been quite eye-opening for the many, many law firms that have been sleeping on their significant cybersecurity exposure. From an unusual and specific warning by the FBI, to reports of elite law firms being hacked, to the blockbuster "Panama Papers" matter, law firms are now ...
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SEC's Ceresney says more cybersecurity cases 'coming down the pike'
The SEC has begun to bring cybersecurity-related enforcement actions under Regulation S-P of the Securities Act of 1933, and Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney stated this week that more such cases are now "coming down the pike."
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Sen. Warren not mad at SEC, just disappointed
There are some basic certainties in life. Death. Taxes. The fact that "haters gonna hate." And to this list I think we can add that Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be "disappointed" in the SEC.
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OSC set to launch whistleblower program in summer 2016
The chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission confirmed this week that the OSC's new whistleblower office is expected to receive final approval in June 2016 and begin operations in "early summer" 2016. The OSC will be the first securities regulator in Canada to adopt a whistleblower program.
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AMU co-chief Marshall Sprung announces departure from SEC
Marshall S. Sprung, co-chief of the SEC Division of Enforcement’s Asset Management Unit, is leaving the agency after 13 years of service. Sprung's co-chief, Anthony Kelly, will continue to lead the unit following Sprung’s departure later this month.
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CFTC whistleblower program finally scores big with $10 million award
Image: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission had been off to a slow start with its Dodd-Frank whistleblower program, having paid out just two awards totaling $530,000 over the entire life of the program. That changed dramatically last week, however, when the CFTC announced a huge award of more than $10 ...
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‘Routine’ vote to finally approve two SEC commissioner nominees blocked
Image: The struggle to add two commissioners to the SEC drags on, leaving SEC Chair Mary Jo White (left) and two other SEC commissioners to do the work of what is supposed to be a five-member commission. The most recent development in this saga came yesterday, when a supposedly “routine” ...
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How SEC legend Judge Stanley Sporkin hired future luminaries
Image: Title: SporkinIn the past two weeks there have been two interesting articles written about SEC enforcement legend Judge Stanley Sporkin, the SEC’s second director of enforcement (and much more). Inside, enforcement blogger Bruce Carton looks at the takes on “Sporkin’s kids”—his SEC protégés who went on to become luminaries ...
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SEC claims Navistar, former CEO misled investors about truck engine
Yesterday, the SEC filed an administrative proceeding against Navistar International Corp. alleging that Navistar misled investors when it "failed to fully disclose the company’s difficulties obtaining Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certification" of a particular truck engine. Navistar agreed to settle the SEC's AP by paying a $7.5 million penalty and ...
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Utah plays shame game with “White Collar Crime Offender Registry"
Utah’s “White Collar Crime Offender Registry”—its effort to identify and shame its white-collar criminals—is now up and running. The Registry lists over 100 offenders in alphabetical order, including mug shot, birthday, height, weight, and “Qualifying Convictions.” Offenders will remain on it for (a) a period of 10 years for a ...
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FBI's Cyber Division alerts law firms to hacker threats
The FBI's Cyber Division recently issued a Private Industry Notification alerting law firms that "[i]n a recent cyber criminal forum post, a criminal actor posted an advertisement to hire a technically proficient hacker for the purposes of gaining sustained access to the networks of multiple international law firms." The criminals ...
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SEC commissioner nominees Peirce and Fairfax receive Senate hearing
This week -- finally(!) -- the Senate Banking Committee held confirmation hearings for the two people nominated to be the next SEC commissioners: Hester Peirce and Lisa Fairfax. Presently, following the 2015 departures of SEC commissioners Luis Aguilar and Daniel Gallagher, the SEC is operating with just three commissioners (Chair ...
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ASIC announces record sentence in Xiao insider trading case
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced that Hui Xiao, a former managing director of Hanlong Mining, was sentenced today to a total of 8 years and 3 months for insider trading -- the longest sentence ever imposed in Australia for that crime. The Xiao case is a nice success ...
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SEC awards nearly $2 million in latest blockbuster whistleblower payout
The SEC announced another blockbuster whistleblower award yesterday. The agency stated that it will pay nearly $2 million to three whistleblowers in a case -- including a payment of approximately $1.8 million to one of the three whistleblowers.
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DOJ's Patrick Stokes promoted, Daniel Kahn named acting head of FCPA unit
The current head of the DOJ's FCPA unit, Patrick Stokes, has been named Senior Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. Daniel S. Kahn, Assistant Chief of the FCPA unit since 2013, will now serve as Acting Head of the FCPA unit.
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2016 SEC trial scorecard update: agency undefeated after three trials
On Monday, February 29, 2016, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York returned a verdict in favor of the SEC in the agency's third federal court trial of FY 2016. The agency remains undefeated in FY 2016having been successful in SEC v. Payton ...
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Throwback Thursday: The three-digit insider trading case
At least one commentator declared this week's SEC insider trading case alleging illegal profits of just $1,083 to be the smallest insider trading case ever. Nope!
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Stanford Law rolls out ‘Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Clearinghouse’
U.S.-based Stanford Law School announced earlier this month that it has teamed up with law firm Sullivan & Cromwell to launch the new Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Clearinghouse. The FCPA Clearinghouse is a free, public resource that provides a comprehensive, searchable, and very useful database of enforcement actions and information ...
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A closer look at the SEC's 'Analysis and Detection Center'
Recent comments by an SEC official about five insider trading cases generated from the Enforcement Division's "Analysis and Detection Center" over the last year generated some questions in the blogosphere. Now Enforcement Action has some answers!