The Biden administration's efforts to establish environmental, social, and corporate governance requirements on corporations has drawn scorn from Republican lawmakers even as companies learn to navigate the ESG initiative with an unclear regulatory framework.
Regulators cranking up scrutiny of digital-payment platforms after fund-access and customer service problems in recent years are now broadening their gaze into what happens if they collapse. That's placing additional pressure on these fintech platforms to improve customer disclosures and possibly even find new ways to backstop against potential insolvency.
Regulators increasingly are scrutinizing employee use of personal devices and third-party messaging apps. This article summarizes the DOJ's recent guidance and the SEC's enforcement trends and priorities in this area, and it provides information governance best practices companies can implement now to ensure they are meeting regulators' expectations and recordkeeping rules.
The growth in size of companies dominating sectors of the entertainment industry has been subject to antitrust challenges with mixed results. What are some notable recent developments in this area?
With ample bravado, in recent years the FCPA unit of the DOJ and the SEC have proclaimed that holding individuals accountable for foreign bribery schemes is of "critical importance," with the FCPA saying "it is unambiguously this department's first priority" to prosecute individuals in corporate criminal matters. Reviewing the enforcement record, however, one sees that the volume of FCPA enforcement activity with respect to individuals has steadily declined in the last three years.
Digital assets have created a jurisdictional tug of war between the SEC and the CFTC over whether cryptocurrencies should be regulated as commodities or securities. Also tugging on that rope sit those who say cryptocurrencies are neither, and need new bespoke rules.
Messaging company Slack Technologies scored a unanimous victory in the U.S. Supreme Court last month, which held that an investor suing over a company stock offering must show he held "registered" securities in the company.
Some markets allow for the sale of a future contract for tickets that have not gone on sale as yet (i.e., "speculative ticketing"). The future contract, like an option or a commodities future, allows someone to purchase the right to buy a ticket once the tickets are offered for sale. This seems to implicate securities law issues, broker-dealer regulations and potentially the general solicitation rule.
Part Three of a Three-Part Article The first two installments exposited Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders and Lorenzo v. S.E.C., both essential to understanding S.E.C. v. Rio Tinto, the Second Circuit's most recent holding regarding Rule 10b-5 "scheme" liability. Now we examine how the "Mother Court" of federal securities law has tended to that branch of the mighty judicial oak rooted in that venerable regulation.
Should resale royalties be paid to artists and venues when tickets are resold? Such a resale royalty might encourage artists or sports teams to permit transferability for some or all their tickets. It would also help to value that property right. So how would that work?
