Securities Law

Backdating Backlash: Ex-GC Sues McAfee, Claims Scapegoating; Another Sees Win

Two former general counsel caught up in backdating probes are fighting back. In the case of Kent Roberts, the former general counsel of McAfee Inc., the fight is being waged in a lawsuit filed yesterday in San Francisco federal court. Roberts, acquitted last year in a criminal backdating case, claims…

Sep 17, 2009 4:11 PM CDT

Law Prof to Head New SEC Division Regulating Risky Financial Products

A banking law expert at the University of Texas School of Law will head a new division at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that will assess and address risks posed by innovative financial products. The SEC announced today that professor Henry Hu will oversee the new Risk, Strategy and…

Sep 16, 2009 10:32 PM CDT

Experts See Only Slight Risk for Law Firms in BofA Case, Despite Judge’s Ire

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff’s refusal to approve a $33 million settlement between Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission has put two law firms into the spotlight. The firms are Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which represented Bank of America, and Shearman & Sterling, representing takeover target…

Sep 16, 2009 1:34 PM CDT

Judge Appoints Public Defender for Billionaire R. Allen Stanford

A federal judge today appointed a public defender to represent a Texas billionaire who is accused of bilking $7 billion or so from investors in a scheme that allegedly revolved around an offshore bank’s certificates of deposit. Because R. Allen Stanford’s assets were frozen in a civil suit brought by…

Sep 15, 2009 7:45 PM CDT

Greedy Gordon Gekko to Make a Comeback in ‘Wall Street 2’

Remember Gordon Gekko? Famous for his philosophy that greed is good, the once-mighty corporate raider played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 movie Wall Street has been released from prison just in time to appear in a new Oliver Stone movie that has just begun filming. How Gekko continues to…

Sep 15, 2009 5:25 PM CDT

Judge Rejects SEC Deal with Bank of America, Asks Why Lawyers Weren’t Charged

A federal judge has refused to approve a $33 million settlement between Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission amid questions about culpability by lawyers and executives. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of Manhattan said the deal “does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and…

Sep 14, 2009 4:44 PM CDT

Major Plaintiffs Practice Opens in Calif., Joins Westward Move By Corporate Firms

A major plaintiff firm known for its work in securities class actions has opened a new office in California, establishing its first outpost beyond its 70-attorney headquarters in the suburban Philadelphia area. The new San Francisco office of Barroway Topaz Kessler Meltzer & Check will be headed by Ramzi Abadou,…

Sep 11, 2009 6:18 PM CDT

SEC Filing Takes a Dig at Wachtell by Quoting the Firm’s Own Lawyers

The Securities and Exchange Commission has unearthed some old publications and statements by lawyers at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz in an effort to prove the law firm was aware of the need to disclose bonuses to Merrill Lynch executives in a proxy statement by its client, Bank of America.…

Sep 10, 2009 4:58 PM CDT

15 Madoff Investors in Mass. to Share $8M Fairfield Settlement

Fairfield Greenwich Group has agreed to pay $8 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the Massachusetts Secretary of State over serving as a feeder fund to Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme. Under today’s settlement, all 15 of the identified investors in Massachusetts who put money into Madoff’s $65 billion…

Sep 8, 2009 10:39 PM CDT

Judge Hits ‘Remora’ Lawyers, ‘Emphatically’ Turns Down Fee Request

A federal judge in Minneapolis didn’t hide his disdain when he turned down a request for $225,000 in attorney fees by lawyers representing objectors in a class action settlement. The lawyers had argued against payment of $110 million in attorney fees as part of a settlement in shareholder litigation against…

Sep 8, 2009 2:41 PM CDT

SIPC Covers Some Losses for Madoff Investors, But Not Stanford CDs

When retired accountant Peter Kaltman bought $550,000 in certificates of deposit from Stanford International Bank, the brokerage that sold them to him had the Securities Investor Protection Corp. logo on its stationery. But the SIPC isn’t reimbursing him or other brokerage investors for what allegedly are now virtually worthless CDs…

Sep 4, 2009 11:21 PM CDT

Madoff Thought Jig Was Up in 2006, But SEC Didn’t Check Trades

Questioned by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2006, Bernard Madoff gave the feds his account number at the Depository Trust Co. independent clearing agency and figured he was only hours away from being exposed as the architect of a massive investment fraud. “I thought it was the end,…

Sep 3, 2009 6:12 PM CDT

SEC Never Did ‘Thorough & Competent’ Madoff Probe, Internal Report Says

Despite at least six complaints over a period of nearly a decade that Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme under the guise of a hedge fund, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission never did a “thorough and competent” investigation into what turned out to be a record-breaking $65 billion…

Sep 2, 2009 7:59 PM CDT

Stanford Receiver Defends $27M Bill Against SEC’s ‘Shrill Objections’

In an unusual public battle over a court-appointed receiver’s $27 million bill, attorney Ralph Janvey is telling the feds that cleaning up an alleged $7 billion bank Ponzi scheme of which Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford is the accused mastermind costs money. In a filing last night in federal district…

Sep 2, 2009 6:22 PM CDT

Technical Foul

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer Jeffrey B. Norris moved to Texas in the early ’90s and became a passionate fan of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. The team’s fortunes, he said, practically controlled his emotional state.

Sep 2, 2009 3:40 AM CDT