10 For 10: Top Compliance Stories For the Week Ending March 15, 2025
Episode 286 -- Matt Stankiewicz on the Ripple Decision and Celsius CEO Indictment
Blue Sky Laws: Defending State-Level Securities Violations
The Justice Insiders: The Administrative State is Not Your Friend - A Conversation with Professor Richard Epstein
Four Decision Points in SEC Securities Investigations
Crypto Enforcement Is Here, and Always Has Been
Cryptocurrency: The Regulator’s Perspective
Investment Management Roundtable Discussion – Regulatory and Enforcement Update
Each month, we publish a roundup of the most important SEC enforcement developments for busy in-house lawyers and compliance professionals. This month, we examine the following matters: • An SEC complaint alleging a Georgia...more
Until fall 2023, there were few SEC enforcements or litigations involving securities issues with non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”). This has changed dramatically. In rapid succession last fall, the SEC undertook two enforcements...more
On December 23, 2023, BarnBridge DAO (“BarnBridge”) and its founders, Tayler Ward and Troy Murray, agreed to settle charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). BarnBridge violated Sections5(a) and 5(c)...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) is paying considerable attention to the world of cryptocurrency (“crypto”). According to the SEC website, the SEC has brought more than 50 enforcement actions against crypto...more
While a conclusion to the much-hyped case may be approaching, market participants should be wary of doomsday prognostications. As a new year begins, the digital assets industry is still enduring a deep and widespread crypto...more
With the enduring popularity of certain NFTs and the promise of their use in the Metaverse and beyond, the hype around the new technology has been accompanied by rising concerns over NFTs being the centerpiece of traditional...more
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are digital assets that are sharply rising in popularity. Every day, individuals are launching new NFT projects with similar or new features compared to prior NFT projects. NFTs are attractive to...more
STOs and NFTs - STOs stands for “security token offerings.” They involve an offering of digitalized securities such as stocks, bonds, or other token and coin projects. The difference between an IPO and an STO is that STOs...more
Key Takeaways - ..The court denied Ripple’s senior executives’ motions to dismiss, finding that the SEC had met its pleading burden. ..The court also denied the SEC’s motion to strike Ripple’s fair-notice affirmative...more
On January 10, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or the “Commission”) announced it settled charges in In re tZERO ATS, LLC, No. 93938 (SEC Order Jan. 10, 2022) (“Order”)....more
A key question for any company considering the issuance of cryptocurrency is whether that digital asset will be treated by regulators as a security, like BP stock, or a commodity, like Bitcoin. In 2019, the Securities and...more
SEC Settles First-Of-Its-Kind $13m DeFi Tech Action; NASDAQ Board Diversity Rules Challenged in Fifth Circuit; Delaware Court of Chancery Declines to Enforce Contractual Limitations on Liability to Bar Contractual Fraud...more
On December 21, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a high-profile enforcement action against a major cryptocurrency company. The SEC complaint alleges violations of federal securities laws by defendant...more
On December 2, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, Inc. and two of its executives alleging they offered and sold over $1.38 billion of digital asset XRP without registration or...more
The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed a complaint against Ripple Labs, Inc. (“Ripple”) and two of its executives, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, on December 22, 2020 in the U.S. District Court for the...more
Credit Suisse’s CEO Tidjane Thiam is out, to be succeeded next week by longtime company vet Thomas Gottstein. Thaim appeared to have ridden out the corporate spying scandal involving a former employee last year, and he had...more
In 2019, regulators continued to consider whether and how to regulate blockchain technology. After the two previous years that included a high number of initial coin offerings (ICOs), many of which involved allegedly...more
Dean Foods, the largest milk company in the U.S., has filed for bankruptcy protection, a “fresh setback to a U.S. dairy industry struggling against declining U.S. milk consumption and rising competition.” Industry experts...more
On October 11, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) announced it filed a complaint and obtained a temporary restraining order against Telegram Group Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary TON Issuer...more
Token pre-sale agreements are a popular type of financing instrument among start-ups in the blockchain space. Latham & Watkins attorneys explore the initial impact of SEC v. Kik on the use of token pre-sale agreements and...more
U.S. Developments - Regulatory Updates - CFTC Publishes Enforcement Manual - On May 8, 2019, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC”) Division of Enforcement (“DOE”) published its first public...more
In this issue, we examine the release of the much-anticipated Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub) guidance for analyzing how U.S. federal securities laws apply to initial coin offerings, the...more
In an enforcement action filed on November 8, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ordered that 31-year-old Zachary Coburn, founder of the EtherDelta cryptocurrency exchange, cease and desist from operating the...more
After a surge in popularity and an increased interest from regulators, virtual currencies — also known as cryptocurrencies — have entered into a new phase in their relatively short history, with an increase in class actions...more
One week after filing a fraud suit against the organizer of the PlexCoin token sale, the SEC issued an enforcement order in connection with a token offering by Munchee and a public statement that shed some additional light on...more