All Regulatory Enforcement articles – Page 159
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SEC Whistleblower Program’s Latest Threat: Its Success
Corporate compliance officers may have a new reason to be uncomfortable with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower program: how well it appears to be working. Tips are flooding into the SEC, including 3,620 in fiscal year 2014 alone. “The SEC has institutionally embraced the whistleblower statute,” says Brian Kenney, ...
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Blog
'FIN4' Hackers Target Over 100 Companies Seeking Market-Moving Information
Cyber-security firm FireEye released a report this week on a group of hackers that has targeted e-mail accounts of individuals with access to confidential information at more than 100 companies. The hackers are looking for non-public information about merger and acquisition deals and other major market-moving revelations, particularly in the ...
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2015 SEC Trial Scorecard Update: Agency is Undefeated After Two Trials
Last year's SEC Trial Scorecard for FY 2014 is in the books, so it is time to get started on our FY 2015 SEC Trial Scorecard. The SEC Trial Scorecard tracks the SEC's trials in federal court, along with the outcome. To date in FY 2014 (which began on ...
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Final SEC Trial Scorecard for FY 2014: SEC Posts 5-7-5 Record in 17 Trials
In March 2014, I began tracking the SEC's federal court trials in FY 2014 (which began on October 1, 2013), and the results in each case. The SEC's final trial scorecard in FY 2014 included a total of 17 trials. Of those 17 trials, SEC had five outright victories in ...
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U.K. Regulators Fine RBS, Two Others £56M for IT Lapses
Image: Title: McDermottNov. 25—Financial regulators in Britain fined Royal Bank of Scotland, National Westminster Bank, and Ulster Bank a combined £56 million last week for IT failings in the summer of 2012 that left customers without full access to ATMs, online payments, and other banking services. The joint enforcement action ...
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HSBC Private Bank Pays $12.5 Million for Providing Unregistered Services to U.S. Clients
HSBC’s Swiss-based private banking arm agreed today to pay $12.5 million to Securities and Exchange Commission for violating federal securities laws by failing to register with the SEC before providing cross-border brokerage and investment advisory services to U.S. clients. “HSBC Private Bank’s efforts to prevent registration violations ultimately failed, because ...
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FINRA Fines Citigroup $15 Million for Supervisory Failures
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Citigroup Global Markets $15 million last week for failing to adequately supervise communications between its equity research analysts and its clients and Citigroup sales and trading staff. In settling this matter, Citigroup neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of ...
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Antitrust Division to Increase Use of Probation in Enforcement
Image: Title: SnyderThe Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice has signaled a shift in its enforcement approach concerning companies that violate antitrust laws and don’t have effective compliance programs. During two recent speeches, Antitrust officials said they would seek court-supervised probation in such cases. “Conversely, companies that can demonstrate ...
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Blog
The SEC's Role in the War of 1812
Today on TheRacetotheBottom blog, Prof. J. Robert Brown Jr. of the University of Denver Law School took a playful poke at the Association of American Law Schools for its recent announcement (still on its website here) that SEC Chair Mary Jo White will be the inaugural speaker for its Showcase ...
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Justice Department Nets Record $5.7 Billion From False Claims Cases
Image: Title: DeleryThe Department of Justice obtained a record $5.7 billion in recoveries from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government in fiscal year 2014, thanks mainly to massive settlements reached in the financial services and healthcare industries. “In the past three years, we have achieved the ...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 ...