The Chicago Board Options Exchange, which is the largest options exchange in the United States, has consented to pay $6 million penalty to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges accusing it of not fulfilling its obligation to enforce trading rules and failing to stop one firm member from engaging in…
Ex-Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins wants the agency to rework its shareholder proposal rule, including the process that the staff employs to determine when issuers can leave the proposals out of their proxy materials. Atkins pointed to the recent increase in shareholder proposals that are pressing companies to reveal…
State Securities Regulators and others are battling over how the US Securities and Exchange Commission should create a $50 million offering cap for exempt offerings under regulation A. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act had ordered the SEC to establish the new exemption but gave no deadline. Referred to by…
New SEC Chairman Reviews “Neither Admit, Nor Deny Wrongdoing” Policy Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White is taking a closer look at the agency’s practice of letting defendants that settle cases with it not have to admit to or deny the allegations. Critics of the policy have been…
Hedge fund billionaire Philip Falcone and his Harbinger Group (HRG) have reached an $18 million securities fraud settlement, an agreement in principle, with the SEC over allegations that he fraudulently took a $113 million loan from one of his funds to cover his taxes, manipulated the market, and gave preference…
The SEC is suing four traders affiliated with brokerage firm Direct Access Partners for their alleged involvement in a financial scam that involved millions of dollars paid in illicit bribes to a Venezuelan banking official to obtain that bank’s bond trading business. According to the regulator, DAPs’ global markets group…
Ex-Commission Officials, Others Want DC Circuit to Grant Stanford Ponzi Scam Victims SIPC Protection Former SEC Officials, law professors, and trade groups are among those pressing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reject the regulator’s bid to compel Securities Investor Protection Corporation coverage for…
US Senators John Thune (R-SD), Richard Burr (R-NC), and Tom Coburn (R-Okla) have introduced a bill that would mandate that public pension plans reveal more information about the way they calculate liabilities and assets or place at risk the favorable tax treatment for bonds that are issued by the states…
Under Rule of Practice 102(e), SEC to File More Securities Cases Against Lawyers According to the Commission, it intends to bring even more cases against lawyers under its Rule of Practice 102(e). The amount cases had already gone up in the wake of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and…
According to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Elisse Walter, the best way to regulate global over-the-counter derivatives regulation is via “substituted compliance.” Such an approach would let a market participant comply with domestic requirements in a certain area through compliance with comparable foreign regulation while also allowing the domestic regulator…