Securities Law

Texas immunity law protects BigLaw firms that represented Ponzi schemer, 5th Circuit rules

Law firms that represented convicted Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford are immune from a lawsuit by defrauded investors as a result of Texas law on attorney immunity, a federal appeals court has ruled. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) on Thursday in a suit against…

Mar 11, 2016 8:51 AM CST

Lawyer gets 17 years for helping fugitive client with stock scheme

A Texas lawyer convicted in 2014 of helping a fugitive client with fraudulent stock sales while the man was on the run was sentenced Monday to a 17-year federal prison term. Attorney Patrick Lanier, 67, also was ordered to pay $37 million in restitution after his release, the Houston Chronicle…

Mar 9, 2016 11:35 AM CST

Disbarred securities lawyer pleads guilty to evading $1.5M in taxes

A New York securities law attorney who moved to Florida in 1998 has pleaded guilty to tax evasion concerning $1.5 million the feds say he didn’t pay the government in income tax. Court documents say William J. Reilly, 62, who practiced law in both states, used law firm bank accounts…

Mar 8, 2016 12:15 PM CST

Chadbourne settles suit by investors burned by convicted Ponzi schemer

Chadbourne & Parke has settled a suit claiming a former partner aided fraud by convicted Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford. Terms of the settlement with defrauded investors are undisclosed, the Am Law Daily (sub. req.) reports. Stanford’s former lawyer, Thomas Sjoblom, worked at Chadbourne before joining Proskauer Rose. Sjoblom and…

Mar 1, 2016 11:36 AM CST

Ex-BigLaw partner is convicted of insider trading; feds say he misused deal info overheard at firm

After four days of trial and less than four hours of deliberation, a former real estate partner of Fox Rothschild was convicted of insider trading Friday by a federal jury in Philadelphia. Herbert Sudfeld Jr. was also convicted of making false statements to the FBI, reports the Legal Intelligencer (sub.…

Feb 8, 2016 2:20 PM CST

Former general counsel will receive $850K for alleged defamation by his onetime employer

A former general counsel will receive $850,000 as a result of a lawsuit that contended his former company defamed him in a statement that wrongly implied he was replaced as a remedial measure in a penny stock probe. Jurors in Hennepin County, Minnesota, awarded the lawyer, Chet Taylor, $600,000 in…

Feb 3, 2016 9:23 AM CST

SCOTUS accepts insider trading case involving passed tips; does tipper have to get tangible benefit?

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the insider trading conviction of an Illinois man who received confidential information from the brother of a former investment banker. The court agreed to hear the case of Bassam Salman on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reports. At issue is whether the corporate insider…

Jan 19, 2016 10:12 AM CST

SEC alleges Nelson Mullins partner served as conduit in pay-to-play scheme

A civil suit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleges a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough served as a conduit in a pay-to-play scheme by State Street Bank and Trust Co. The lawyer, Robert Crowe of Boston, is co-chair of Nelson Mullins’ government relations practice and a…

Jan 15, 2016 7:25 AM CST

Goldman Sachs OKs $5B settlement of civil claims over toxic mortgage bonds

One of Wall Street’s best-known financial institutions has agreed to pay more than $5 billion to settle claims that it sold toxic bonds based on residential mortgages between 2005 and 2007, as the nation’s mortgage market was about to go into a meltdown. The agreement in principle by Goldman Sachs…

Jan 14, 2016 5:00 PM CST

SEC isn’t required to make companies reveal political contributions

A federal judge has tossed aside an effort to force the Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt a rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose their political contributions. Reuters reported Monday that U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer in Washington, D.C., dismissed a lawsuit brought by the nonprofit Campaign for Accountability…

Jan 4, 2016 5:15 PM CST

Drug company CEO Martin Shkreli and law firm partner arrested in securities fraud case

A partner in the New York office of a major law firm was arrested Thursday, accused in a federal indictment of conspiring with a well-known entrepreneur and former hedge fund manager in a portion of a claimed securities fraud. Current Kaye Scholer partner Evan Greebel worked with fellow defendant Martin…

Dec 17, 2015 11:10 AM CST

IP analytics company Lex Machina is sold to LexisNexis; it plans expansion to new practice areas

LexisNexis has agreed to buy Lex Machina, a company that analyzes data from intellectual property cases. The acquisition will allow Lex Machina to expand its analytics to other practice areas and help LexisNexis enhance its products, report LawSites by Robert Ambrogi, Legaltech News and Bloomberg BNA’s BigLaw Business. Currently Lex…

Nov 25, 2015 5:45 AM CST

DOJ: Hacking schemes ‘breathtaking in size and scope’ targeted 12 companies, got data on 100 million

Expanding charges in a case against two Israeli men and a U.S. citizen, a federal prosecutor on Tuesday unsealed a superseding indictment (PDF) and accused them of playing a role in a sprawling years-long series of hacking schemes that stole personal data for 100 million people and targeted a dozen…

Nov 10, 2015 3:55 PM CST

Coal company will change disclosures on business risks of climate change to end state AG’s probe

The nation’s largest publicly traded coal company, Peabody Energy Corp., has agreed to change its shareholder disclosures to reflect the business risks associated with climate change and the regulatory response. The agreement, in the form of an assurance of discontinuance (PDF), ends an investigation by New York Attorney General Eric…

Nov 9, 2015 7:44 AM CST

New York securities lawyer is accused of stock manipulation

A Manhattan securities lawyer is among three people arrested on Wednesday in an expanding probe of a $300 million scheme to manipulate the prices of penny stocks. The lawyer, 46-year-old Darren Ofsink, was accused along with two investment advisers of using press releases, false filings with the Securities and Exchange…

Nov 6, 2015 7:16 AM CST