On March 21, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued a rule proposal addressing Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) disclosure regulation, a concern of many investors. (SEC Press Release). The rule proposal targets disclosure of environmental issues by public companies in their required financial statements. Id. Republicans and many industry groups strongly opposed the rule, arguing that the rule would cause an unwarranted spike in compliance costs…
Read MoreThere is a long history of celebrities promoting various products and investments that did not turn out well for the individuals who acted on their advice. (Joe Mont, TheStreet). 50 Cent using Twitter to “pump” up the share price of a business he partially owned is one notable example. (Id.; Mike Masnick, TechDirt). FTX, a large crypto exchange which many celebrities publicly endorsed, collapsed in November 2022 in no small part due to fraud by its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. (Tietrich Knauth & Tom Hals, Reuters; Nathan Reiff, Investopedia). This public endorsement by various celebrities appears to be another example of celebrities scamming their fans...
Read MoreTicketmaster is facing major backlash after its system malfunctioned during the ticket pre-sale for Taylor Swift’s “The Eras” tour. Ticketmaster left fans waiting for hours on its site, with many walking away empty handed. (Julian Mark, The Washington Post). Consequently, Ticketmaster cancelled public ticket sales, resulting in thousands of overpriced tickets on the secondary market. Id. The company may have purposefully not safeguarded its site for financial gain, raising major antitrust concerns. (Eleanor Tyler, Bloomberg). Numerous claims regarding this issue have settled in arbitration…
Read MoreThe age-old saying “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” may not be true in the case of Google, which has become synonymous with internet searching and technology, and subsequently garnered increasing attention from regulators across the globe. On January 24, 2023, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a second antitrust lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia regarding Google’s role in digital advertising. (Department of Justice). The case is particularly noteworthy because it is the first U.S. lawsuit that calls for the divestiture of Google’s dominant ad tech business and seeks monetary damages for harms to the federal government…
Read MoreOnce valued at $32 billion, crypto exchange FTX Trading Ltd. (“FTX”) shocked the world as it collapsed and filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2022. (Max Zahn, ABC News). An article by CoinDesk initially triggered the crypto exchange fall when it reported that FTX and Alameda Research—a crypto trading firm founded by FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried—shared excessively close relationships and blurred finances. (Ian Allison, CoinDesk). Following the report, concerned investors requested withdrawals from the exchange, which caused the value of FTT—FTX’s native token—to nosedive…
Read MoreIn the past months, the stock market has seen the longest stretch of losses since 2001. (Tripp Mickle, New York Times). As investors adjust to the onset of a “bear market,” a market persistently declining in value, some venture-capital firms (“VC”) are changing their focus from investing exclusively within the startup industry to purchasing stocks of publicly traded companies. (Merriam-Webster; Berber Jin, Wall Street Journal). Inflation in the United States is at a 40-year high, and the Federal Reserve has continued to raise interest rates to combat it. (Nick Timiraos, Wall Street Journal). The market has been strained by the current interest rates, as well as the war in Ukraine, supply chain issues, and other factors…
Read More