SEC Enforcement

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on September 11, 2023, settlement agreements with nine registered investment advisers. All were charged with advertising hypothetical performance on their websites without adopting and implementing policies and procedures required by Rule 206(4)-1 (the Marketing Rule) under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (Advisers Act).…

The author wishes to acknowledge the contributions of summer associate Henry Little

Proposed Rules

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicated this summer that it plans to introduce proposals to regulate conflicts of interest associated with artificial intelligence (AI) later this year as part of its semiannual rule-writing agenda. The SEC is considering proposed…

The delay has subsided with custody of digital asset securities by special purpose broker-dealers (SPBDs). By way of background, on July 8, 2019, SEC and FINRA staff issued a joint statement addressing how registered broker-dealers could facilitate transactions in digital asset securities without taking custody of the assets. The solution involved bilateral clearance and settlement of the transactions.

A year later, the SEC’s Division of Trading Markets staff issued a no-action letter to FINRA articulating the staff’s position on how alternative trading systems (ATSs) could facilitate trading in digital asset securities using a three-step process. However, per its terms, the no-action letter requires the ATSs to not take custody of the digital asset securities.…

Between November 2017 and November 2021, three individuals actively solicited investments in securities, including providing marketing materials and advising on the merits of the investment, and receiving commissions for their sales. In May 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) halted the activities of the individual defendants involved in May 2022, for operating a…

On March 1, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) unsealed an indictment against the CEO of a publicly traded health care company (the “Executive”) relating to charges of an insider trading scheme. The indictment represents the first time that DOJ has brought criminal insider trading charges stemming from an executive’s use of a Rule…

On February 10, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a settlement order with a firm providing digital investment advice that claimed to operate in compliance with Islamic Shari’ah law (the Robo-Adviser). The SEC’s titling of its own press release, “SEC Charges Robo-Adviser with Misleading Clients,” highlights the SEC’s continued focus on both robo-advisers since the Division of Examination’s November 2021 Risk Alert and the accuracy of fund and adviser communications around investment services based on norms, such as Sharia’ah law, and other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors since the Division’s April 2021 Risk Alert.

On April 28, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed a complaint against a company and its chief executive officer (“CEO”) for alleged fraud in connection with the company’s stated response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In its complaint, the SEC alleged that the company issued two press releases containing false or misleading statements in which the company purported to be negotiating the sale of N95 masks and then made claims that it was in possession of N95 masks. After regulators inquired about these claims, the SEC alleged that the company issued a third press release a month later that it did not have any N95 masks on hand. The complaint asserts that the company’s stock trading volume and stock price increased significantly as a result of the initial press releases.…