False Claims Act Insights - How a Marine Fisheries Dispute Opened an FCA Can of Worms
False Claims Act Insights - If Everything Matters, Nothing Does: Parsing Materiality in FCA Disputes
Podcast: Non-binding Guidance: SEC Disclosure Issues for Life Sciences Companies
Life Sciences Quarterly (Q3 2019): SEC Enforcement and Class Actions Regarding FDA Communications
On May 22, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States (the Court) issued its opinion in Kousisis v. United States, holding that a defendant may be convicted of wire fraud for inducing a victim to enter a contract under...more
SEC v. Nagler is the second enforcement action charging an investment adviser with undisclosed conflicts of interest since Chair Paul Atkins began his tenure on April 21, 2025. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)...more
On May 22, 2025, the United States Supreme Court released its opinion in Kousisis v. United States. The Kousisis opinion resolved a split of the federal circuits by finding that proof of economic loss by the government is not...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s May 22 decision in Kousisis v. United States could have wide-ranging implications for criminal and civil fraud cases against government contractors going forward. The Court ruled that a government...more
On May 22, 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously declined to limit federal wire fraud to cases involving economic loss to the victim, upholding convictions of two government contractors who obtained contracts from a state...more
If a defendant uses material misrepresentations to induce a party to enter a contract, but does not economically harm the induced party, has the defendant committed fraud? The Supreme Court has decided: Yes. On May 22, 2025,...more
On May 22, 2025, the Supreme Court held that a defendant could be convicted of federal wire fraud pursuant to 18 USC § 1343 even when the fraud did not result in any economic loss for the victim. This holding expands the...more
A recent ruling may raise the bar for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in charging registered investment advisers for omissions of potential conflicts and seeking disgorgement, giving the defense bar additional...more
In the recent Supreme Court case, Navellier & Associates, Inc. v. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the petitioners sought a writ of certiorari challenging the decisions of the lower courts regarding the scope of...more
The First Circuit, in a closely watched securities case, reversed a $93 million summary judgment ruling for the Securities and Exchange Commission this April. ...more
On April 17, 2025, three operating divisions (the “Operating Divisions”) of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) and the Division of Enforcement (“DOE”) provided guidance in CFTC Letter 25-13 (the...more
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently released its decision in Project Freeway Inc. v ABC Technologies Inc. (2025 ONSC 1048), addressing whether certain post-closing transactions triggered the acceleration of an...more
As we previously reported, in February, the CFTC’s DOE issued an enforcement advisory (the DOE Advisory) to provide guidance to market participants on how the DOE will evaluate a company’s or an individual’s conduct in the...more
On April 1, 2025, the First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a nearly $95 million judgment against our client Commonwealth Financial Network related to the sufficiency of Commonwealth’s revenue-sharing disclosures. The First...more
On April 17, 2025, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Market Participants Division (MPD), the Division of Clearing and Risk (DCR), and the Division of Market Oversight (DMO)—collectively the Operating...more
The three operating divisions of the CFTC (Division of Market Oversight, Market Participants Division, and the Division of Clearing and Risk, together the Operating Divisions) issued an advisory on April 17, explaining the...more
On April 17, 2025, three operating divisions of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) jointly issued an advisory to provide guidance on the materiality or other criteria they will use in deciding whether to make a...more
On April 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated a summary judgment ruling in favor of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Commonwealth Equity Services, LLC, also known as Commonwealth...more
On April 1, the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated a $93 million judgment for the SEC against Commonwealth Financial, including a $65 million disgorgement award. The three-judge panel concluded that the...more
On April 1, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned a $93 million judgment issued against Commonwealth Financial Network (“Commonwealth”) nearly one year ago in a case by the Securities and...more
The court rejects the SEC's per se materiality argument and requires proof of a causal connection between the defendant's allegedly inadequate disclosures and purported unlawful profits....more
When state law provides that an insurance contract can be rescinded for misrepresentations only if they are “material,” can an insurer contract around that rule by adding an exclusion for all claims based on any...more
Cases on Material Adverse Effect (“MAE”) clauses (also known as Material Adverse Change, or MAC, clauses) rarely come before the English courts, so there are limited English authorities on their construction. The High Court...more
The materiality standard in fraud cases may soon shift dramatically if the comments of Supreme Court justices during a recent oral argument are any indication. A rollback of the materiality standard would be the latest in a...more
On January 27, 2025, US Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce gave the keynote address at the Northwestern Securities Regulation Institute in which she offered her personal views on how public...more