Archive

New CFTC Program May Have Some People Seeing Red

By Jason Enzler There is a new program in town to help investors protect themselves from fraud.  The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has starting publishing the identities of foreign entities that the CFTC believes may be involved in illegal practices in what the Commission calls the RED List. With the RED List, investors are now able to go online to investigate whether companies have come under...

Deflate-Gate Revisited: Court Strikes Down NFL Suspension of Tom Brady

By Gordon Schnell In a legal decision heard round the sports world, New York federal judge Richard Berman yesterday nullified the four-game suspension the NFL had previously imposed on New England Patriots superstar Tom Brady.  The punishment was meted out for Brady's alleged involvement in deflating the footballs he used to beat the Indianapolis Colts in last season's AFC Championship Game.  But according to...

Does Stock Crash Reveal Markets Are Rigged Against Small Investors?

By Tim McCormack and Wayne Lamprey The precipitous drop in the stock market on Monday, August 24, was particularly hard on small investors.  The Washington Post reports:

“Millions of these Main Street investors were locked out during the crucial hour when the worst hit, just as markets opened Monday. Popular trading platforms run by TD Ameritrade, Scottrade and others ran slow or not at all as panic grabbed...

SEC Enforcement Spotlight – ITG Pays Over $20 Million To Settle Charges Related To Its “Dark Pool”

Brokerage company ITG, Inc. and its affiliate AlterNet Securities will pay $20.3 million to settle charges that they operated a secret trading desk and misused the confidential trading information of dark pool subscribers.  See SEC Press Release. In 1987, ITG created POSIT, an alternative trading system or “dark pool,” for subscribers such as asset managers, broker-dealers, and institutional investors to...

SEC Enforcement Spotlight – 32 charged in international scheme to trade on hacked news releases

On August 11^th, the SEC announced the filing of fraud charges against 32 defendants for taking part in an international scheme to profit from stolen non-public corporate earnings announcements.  See SEC Press Release The SEC’s complaint alleges that over a five-year period, two Ukrainian men, Ivan Turchynov and Oleksandr Ieremenko, used advanced techniques to hack into two or more newswire services and steal...

SEC Enforcement Spotlight – Mead Johnson Nutrition

Mead Johnson Nutrition Company agreed to pay $12 million to settle SEC findings that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (“FCPA”).  An SEC investigation found that employees of Mead Johnson’s Chinese subsidiary made improper payments to healthcare professionals at government-owned hospitals to induce them to recommend Mead Johnson’s infant formula to new or expectant mothers.  See SEC Press...

In Their Own Words -- Obama

--“Ordinary people have to stand up and say enough is enough.”

President Barack Obama in a speech to thousands of Kenyans on the challenges their country faces on human rights and corruption. Click here for more.

In Their Own Words -- Tillipman

-- “Let’s be clear about one thing: Chuck Blazer is not a whistleblower. And more importantly, the media’s haphazard use of this term to describe Blazer is a disservice to the brave individuals that may legitimately be deemed ‘whistleblowers.’"

-- Jessica Tillipman, Senior Editor of the FCPA Blog and Assistant Dean at The George Washington University Law School.  Click here for more.  

Wall Street Still Behaving Badly

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, there was both a public and private battle cry of "Never Again!"  Dodd-Frank was passed with its sweeping regulations to keep Wall Street in check, and federal and state enforcers went on regulatory rampage extracting 9 and10-figure settlements from a who's who list of the world's top financial firms.  Not many Wall Street...

SEC Announces First Award to Whistleblower in Retaliation Case

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team The SEC awarded $600,000 to a whistleblower who suffered "unique hardships, including retaliation" as a result of blowing the whistle on misconduct at hedge fund advisory firm Paradigm Capital Management.  The award is the maximum the SEC pays to whistleblowers – 30 percent of the amount the SEC recovers – and represents the first time the SEC has made an award to a...