On January 17th, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced significant revisions to its Corporate Enforcement Policy, adding more incentives to companies that self-report corporate criminal misconduct. (Theodore Chung, JDSupra). The change marks the third major update to the policy since October 2021 as the Biden Administration tries to find the right balance between the hardline approach to white collar crime taken under the Obama Administration and the lax approach taken by the Trump Administration…
Read MoreOn 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…
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