Cryptocurrencies: Are They Securities?

Cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, have been in the news a lot lately, but many people still don’t know what they are—or whether they’re regulated.  Here’s a quick rundown.

What Are Cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized digital cash systems.  Eschewing centralized control, such as a bank or government, cryptocurrencies instead rely on pseudonymous peer-to-peer networks—think Napster of yore—in which all actors in the network must recognize and reflect a transaction.  To illustrate how this works, if Person A has an apple and trades it to Person B for her orange, Person A cannot thereafter trade that apple to Person C because everyone knows from a public ledger that Person A has already traded his one apple.

The security of the public ledger is then of paramount importance—so how do cryptocurrencies ensure ledger security?  They rely on people called miners.  Miners are basically the bookkeepers of the public ledger, and anyone with the time, energy, and equipment can be a miner.  When a transaction occurs, it is not immediately added to the public ledger; instead, a miner must first confirm it.  To do so, miners generate a complicated code that: (1) memorializes the data relating to the transaction; (2) refers to the previous confirmed transaction in the system (a sequential timestamp of sorts); and (3) complies with the particular cryptocurrency’s specific requirements.  This is a challenging and necessary task that protects the public ledger—a transaction won’t be confirmed if a code can’t be generated that aligns with previous ledger entries.  Using the earlier example, once Person A’s apple-orange trade has been confirmed, he can’t trade the apple again because any code generated after that reflects that he has already traded his apple.  Without an acceptable code, no new transaction can be confirmed.

READ MORE

Supreme Court to Decide Whether Covered Class Actions May Be Litigated in State Court

As the beginning of the next US Supreme Court term nears, one case in particular has caught our attention, as the question presented asks whether state courts have jurisdiction over certain securities class actions. The case before the Supreme Court that will hopefully decide the matter is Cyan v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund. The ultimate question is—will the Supreme Court issue an opinion that stays the trend of plaintiffs pursuing 1933 Act cases in state court over federal court? READ MORE

“It’s Complicated:” The Evolving Case Law on How Relationships Impact Insider Trading Liability

Last Wednesday, former SAC Capital Advisors manager Mathew Martoma lost a bid to overturn his 2014 insider trading conviction in the Second Circuit.  United States v. Martoma, No. 14-3599, 2017 WL 3611518 (2d Cir. Aug. 23, 2017).  Martoma, the latest in a string of important insider trading decisions, is significant because the Second Circuit departed from the “relationship test” that had been central to Second Circuit insider trading cases in recent years.  See United States v. Newman, 773 F.3d 438 (2d Cir. 2014).  The departure was based on a 2016 Supreme Court decision, Salman v. U.S., in which the Court rejected the “relationship test” as set forth in Newman, and reaffirmed the standard set in Dirks v. SEC, 463 U.S. 646, 103 S. Ct. 3255, 77 L. Ed. 2d 911 (1983), holding that where a close relationship exists between the tipper and tippee, the government is not required to show that the insider received a benefit of a “pecuniary or similarly valuable nature.”  Martoma had appealed his conviction before Salman was issued, and relied heavily on the Second Circuit’s relationship test outlined in Newman.

In Newman, the Second Circuit overturned the insider trading convictions of two portfolio managers who were “remote tippees,” individuals who traded on inside information but with one or more layers of individuals between them and the insider who originally provided the information.  The insiders in Newman were friends with the tippees but did not gain any personal benefit in exchange for the information provided.  The government argued in that case that it only needed to show that the tippees traded on “material, nonpublic information they knew insiders had disclosed in breach of a duty of confidentiality.”  However, the Second Circuit rejected that argument, explaining that the government was required to show that the insider shared confidential information in exchange for a personal benefit, and that the remote tippees were aware of that fact.  The Second Circuit also held that where there is no quid pro quo exchange for confidential information given by a tipper to a tippee, such information only amounts to a “personal benefit” when the tipper has a “meaningfully close personal relationship” with the tippee.  To meet the test, that relationship must “generat[e] an exchange that is objective, consequential, and represents at least a potential gain of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature.”  (Emphasis added.)  Essentially, if there was no potential for financial gain resulting from the gift of information, no personal benefit existed under Newman.  In the immediate aftermath of Newman, many insider trading prosecutions within the Second Circuit became untenable and were dropped.

READ MORE

SEC Updates Revenue Recognition Guidance for Bill-and-Hold Arrangements

Last Friday, the SEC issued two releases regarding guidance on revenue recognition, along with a related Staff Accounting Bulletin. These releases are notable for all SEC registrants, as they update prior revenue recognition guidance.

First, the SEC updated its guidance for criteria to be met in order to recognize revenue when delivery has not occurred, i.e., bill-and-hold arrangements. The SEC’s guidance now follows that of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Topic 606, Revenues from Contracts with Customers. Per ASC Topic 606, revenue may be recognized when or as the entity satisfies a performance obligation by transferring a promised good or service to a customer, and a good or service is transferred when the customer obtains control of that good or service. In the context of bill-and-hold arrangements, ASC Topic 606 provides specific guidance that certain indicators must be met to show that control has been transferred, including: (i) a substantive reason for such an arrangement where the customer has declined to exercise its right to take physical possession of that product; (ii) the product must be identified separately as belonging to the customer; (iii) the product currently must be ready for physical transfer to the customer; and (iv) the entity cannot have the ability to use the product or direct it to another customer. Until a registrant adopts ASC Topic 606, however, it should continue to follow the older guidance for revenue recognition. In conjunction with the SEC’s release, the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant and Division of Corporate Finance also released a bulletin that brings existing SEC staff guidance into conformity with ASC Topic 606.

The SEC also published new guidance with respect to accounting for sales of vaccines and bioterror countermeasures to the Federal Government for placement into the pediatric vaccine stockpile or the strategic national stockpile. In light of the updated ASC Topic 606 referenced above, the SEC states that vaccine manufacturers should now recognize revenue and provide disclosures when vaccines are placed into Federal Government stockpile programs because control of the enumerated vaccines (i.e., childhood disease, influenza and others) will have been transferred to the customer.

Second Circuit Ruling Creates Challenge for Securities Class Action Plaintiffs

The Second Circuit recently considered the extraterritorial application of the U.S. securities laws in the private securities class action context, bringing some clarity to an area of the law that is increasingly important given the globalization of financial markets.

In re Petrobras Securities, 862 F.3d 250 (2nd Cir. 2017), was an appeal of a class certification order in a securities class action related to an alleged multi-year money-laundering and kickback scheme involving Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (“Petrobras”), the Brazilian state-owned oil and gas company. The district court had certified two classes of investors who purchased Petrobras American Depository Shares (ADS) and debt securities, and who brought misrepresentation claims under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against Petrobras, its subsidiaries, and its underwriters. Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247 (2010), held that the anti-fraud provisions of the securities laws have no extraterritorial effect, and as a consequence apply only to transactions in securities that occur on a U.S.-based exchange or that are otherwise “domestic.” Petrobras ADS shares satisfied the first requirement, but the company’s debt securities are traded over-the-counter, not on a U.S. exchange. Prior decisions had limited “domestic” transactions to ones where (1) the purchaser “incurred irrevocable liability within the United States to take and pay for a security . . . or to deliver a security” or (2) “legal title to the security . . . transferred in the United States” (see, e.g., Absolute Activist Value Master Fund Ltd. v. Ficeto, 677 F.3d 60, 68 (2d Cir. 2012)), but how this test implicated the standards for class certification was not clear. READ MORE

The “Pharma Bro” Trial—Who Really Won?

After a five-week trial, a jury of five men and seven women convicted notorious pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli of securities fraud on August 4, 2017. Shkreli had been charged with two counts of securities fraud, three counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and three counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for operating a sophisticated Ponzi scheme in which he looted the assets of his pharmaceutical company to pay off defrauded investors in his hedge funds. The jury convicted Shkreli of two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud but acquitted him of five other counts, including the wire fraud charges.

Shkreli gained notoriety in 2015, when he was head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, for increasing the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 per pill. However, Shkreli’s conviction stems from his time before Turing, when he managed two hedge funds, MSMB Capital Management and MSMB Healthcare Management. The government alleged that between 2009 and 2012, Shkreli induced investments of around $3 million from eight investors in MSMB Capital and $5 million from thirteen investors in MSMB Healthcare by misrepresenting key facts, including the funds’ performance and assets under management, and omitting key facts, such as significant trading losses at another fund Shkreli had previously managed. Shkreli allegedly also withdrew money from the funds for personal use and produced false performance reports touting profits as high as forty percent. MSMB Capital ceased trading after a series of trading losses in early 2011, and MSMB ceased operating in late 2012. In September 2012, Shkreli notified both funds’ investors that he was winding down the funds, that he had doubled their investments net of fees, and that investors could have their interests redeemed for cash, even though the funds had no money. At trial, Shkreli’s attorney argued that the hedge funds’ investors had not only received all of their money back but made significant profits. READ MORE

On the Chopping Block: The Effort to Repeal the CFPB’s New Rule on Consumer Class Actions

On July 19, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) published a new rule that has the potential to significantly increase the number of class action lawsuits brought by consumers against their financial services providers.  Although consumer advocates applaud the rule, critics argue that the rule will lead to an explosion of frivolous lawsuits.  Congress, for its part, is currently taking steps to stop the rule from ever taking effect.

The rule would no longer allow a financial services provider to use mandatory arbitration clauses to stop its consumers from bringing class action lawsuits against that provider. Mandatory arbitration clauses require that disputes between parties to a contract must be resolved by privately appointed arbitrators rather than the courts, with few exceptions.  According to the CFPB, financial services providers have used arbitration clauses in consumer contracts to block class action lawsuits, forcing each consumer to pursue individual claims.  A CFPB study from March 2015 further claims that mandatory arbitration clauses are harmful to consumers because companies avoid paying full relief to all those harmed and are therefore not sufficiently deterred from engaging in the misconduct moving forward. READ MORE

What Startups Need to Know About the Revised Reg D

Startups need funding, and most startups want to raise money with as little legal red tape as possible. But when a startup takes investment money, it is issuing securities, and federal securities laws generally require a company – or “issuer” – to register the offering and sale of any securities with the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The bad news is that most early-stage companies don’t have the legal resources to comply with the SEC’s registration and reporting requirements. The good news is that Congress and the SEC recognize this and so have created certain exemptions from the registration requirement.

The most commonly used exemptions derive from Sections 4(a)(2) and 3(b)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933. Section 4(a)(2) exempts issuer transactions “not involving any public offering,” while Section 3(b)(1) authorizes the SEC to create additional exemptions. The SEC adopted Regulation D (“Reg D”) in 1982 to clarify and expand the exemptions available under these two sections. The SEC further expanded Reg D in 2013 following passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (“JOBS Act”).

Until this year, Reg D included three rules – Rules 504, 505, and 506 – that provided specific exemptions from registration. Rules 504 and 505 exempted certain offerings up to $1 million and $5 million, respectively. Rule 506 spelled out two “safe harbors” – 506(b) and 506(c). If an offering met the conditions of either of Rule 506’s “safe harbors,” it would be deemed a transaction “not involving any public offering” and would be exempt under Section 4(a)(2). READ MORE

Report Shows 2016 Record-Setting Year for Class Action and SEC Settlements

Last week, proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholders Services (“ISS”) published its semi-annual report of the top 100 U.S. securities class action settlements and top 50 SEC settlements of all time, as of December 31, 2016. The report adds thirteen new class action settlements from last year – making 2016 the most represented year in the report’s settlement rankings – along with two new top SEC settlements.

The ISS report ranks, among other things, the top 100 shareholder class action settlements ever reached in the U.S. for actions filed on or after January 1, 1996, when the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act was implemented. ISS’s June 2017 report reflects that there were 137 court-approved securities class action settlements in the US in 2016, remaining steady with 2015. Notably, however, 13 of the 137 class action settlements were among the top 100 shareholder class action settlements, resulting in a total approved settlement fund of over $5.6 billion, the largest in a single year. The largest of these 13 settlements was in Lawrence E. Jaffe Pension Plan v. Household International, Inc., et al., Case No. 02-CV-05893 (N.D. Ill.), which was based on claims of fraudulent misrepresentations concerning allegedly illegal sales techniques, predatory lending practices, and accounting manipulations. In December 2016, the Northern District of Illinois approved a final settlement fund of $1.58 billion, resulting in the seventh largest securities class action settlement in U.S. history. READ MORE

Dodd-Frank Re-Write—the House of Representatives Edition

The House has approved major changes to signature aspects of Dodd-Frank. While those changes are unlikely to survive intact, they are certainly worthy of close attention. We’ve studied the nearly 600-page bill so you don’t have to.

On June 8, 2017, the House passed H.R. 10, entitled the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017. Sponsored by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the bill advances to the Senate after a largely party-line vote, 233 to 186. All but one Republican supported the bill, while all Democrats opposed.

The bill extensively amends the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the landmark 2010 legislation passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse and ensuing financial crisis.

Key changes include:

READ MORE