SEC

Is Your Confidentiality Agreement a Ticking Time Bomb? SEC’s First Action Over Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Protections Targets Company’s Internal Investigations

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For the first time in the nearly five years since Dodd-Frank went into effect, the SEC last week took action against a company over concerns that the company was preventing its employees from potentially blowing the whistle on illegal activity.  The action is significant because the SEC was targeting seemingly innocuous language in a confidentiality agreement and there were no allegations that the company, KBR, Inc., was otherwise breaking the law.

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Goodyear Rolls Out $16 M Settlement With SEC, Putting Brakes on FCPA Charges

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Gavel and Hundred-Dollar Bill

On February 24, 2015, the SEC announced that it had reached an agreement with Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (“Goodyear”) for Goodyear to disgorge more than $16 million to settle FCPA charges stemming from its Kenyan and Angolan subsidiaries.  This settlement is notable because it focuses on bribery involving private companies as opposed to official corruption, which is typically prosecuted by the SEC.  While the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions apply only to improper payments to foreign officials, the SEC charged Goodyear with violations of the FCPA’s books and records provisions, which have no such requirement and instead require a company to keep records that “accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the issuer” and to “devise and maintain a system of internal accounting controls” sufficient to ensure the integrity of the company’s financial records.  This use of the books and records provisions is important because it signals the SEC’s intent and ability to use the FCPA to bring broad, far-reaching enforcement cases that have the potential to ensnare any public company.

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Corporate Whistleblowing: Key Issues In Responding to Possible Violations

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The need to detect and investigate reported allegations of wrongdoing within a corporation has long been a fact of corporate life. In the last 15 years, however, a combination of circumstances has contributed to an explosion of activity in this area. Among the contributing factors was Congress’ passage of laws and related agency regulations encouraging and, in some cases, mandating that employees report suspected corporate misconduct; creating financial incentives for employees to do so; and prohibiting retaliation against those who report. For companies, understanding their obligations pursuant to this statutory regime and the unsettled issues still surrounding it is crucial both for purposes of complying with applicable law and responding appropriately to alleged wrongdoing. Recently Orrick attorneys drafted an article for the Review of Securities & Commodities Regulation that discusses certain significant whistleblowing provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“Sarbanes-Oxley”) and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”), as well as best practices for responding to tips where these statutes apply.

To view the full article, please click here.

For Now, The Broad Interpretation of “Foreign Officials” Under the FCPA Is Here to Stay

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Blue Globe

In recent years, the DOJ and SEC have significantly increased their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement efforts, and in the process, have successfully advocated the theory that state-owned or state-controlled entities should qualify as instrumentalities of a foreign government under the FCPA. The FCPA defines a foreign official as “any officer or employee of a foreign government or any department, agency or instrumentality thereof.” In August 2014, the government’s broad definition of who constitutes a “foreign official” came into question for the first time when two individuals (Joel Esquenazi and Carlos Rodriguez) filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court to challenge their convictions under the FCPA and argued for the high court to limit the FCPA’s definition of the term. However, on October 6, 2014, the Supreme Court declined to consider the potential landmark case effectively upholding the government’s broad view of the term “foreign official.” READ MORE →

The MCDC Initiative: Round One Is Underway

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3 Minutes to 12:00

The clock will strike on the first self-report deadline under the SEC’s Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation Initiative (the “MCDC Initiative”) at 12:00 a.m. EST on September 10, 2014.  Under the MCDC Initiative, underwriters and issuers of municipal securities may choose to self-report any potential, materially inaccurate statements relating to prior compliance with continuing disclosure obligations in exchange for a recommendation of “favorable settlement terms.”  Under the terms of the original SEC announcement, the deadline for both underwriters and issuers was September 10.  But the SEC announced a set of modifications to the MCDC Initiative on July 31, 2014, including a shift to a piecemeal approach whereby the deadline for underwriters went unchanged but the deadline for issuers was moved to December 1, 2014.  This decision was admonished in an August 28, 2014 letter from U.S. Representatives Steve Stivers and Krysten Sinema to SEC Chair Mary Jo White, in which they “urge[d] the SEC to extend the self-reporting deadline for dealers to match the deadline for issuers” because there “simply is no justification for separate reporting deadlines.” READ MORE →

No “Loos” Causation From Mere Announcement Of Internal Investigation

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Map and gavel

Securities fraud actions are often filed on the heels of an announcement of an internal or SEC investigation.  A recent Ninth Circuit decision, Loos v. Immersion Corp., may make it easier for company executives to sleep at night following such an announcement.  The Ninth Circuit has joined a growing number of circuits holding that the announcement of an internal investigation, standing alone, is insufficient to show loss causation at the pleading stage. READ MORE →

Can You Hear the Whistle Blowing?: SEC Punishes Company that Did Not Address Fraud Allegations by Whistleblower

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently announced the latest whistleblower bounty awarded under the Dodd-Frank Act, which authorizes rewards for original information about violations of securities laws.  Whistleblowers can receive 10 percent to 30 percent of the money collected in an SEC enforcement action where the monetary sanctions imposed exceed $1 million.

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Judge Rakoff’s “Sour Grapes”: SEC v. Citigroup Settlement Approved

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On August 5, 2014, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff reluctantly approved a$285 million settlement in the SEC’s enforcement action against Citigroup.  In SEC v. Citigroup, the SEC alleged that after Citigroup realized in early 2007 that the market for mortgage-backed securities was beginning to weaken, it created a billion-dollar fund to sell some of these assets to investors without disclosing either that Citigroup had exercised significant influence in selecting the assets to include in the fund and had itself retained a $500 million short position in the assets it had helped select.

Judge Rakoff initially declined to approve the proposed consent judgment because he said it lacked “sufficient evidence to enable it to assess whether the agreement was fair, adequate, reasonable, and in the public’s interest.”  He was forced to reconsider that position when the Second Circuit ruled, on appeal, that the “primary focus of the [district court’s] inquiry . . . should be on ensuring the consent decree is procedurally proper, . . . taking care not to infringe on the SEC’s discretionary authority to settle on a particular set of terms.” READ MORE →

SEC Can’t Pass On Pot Stock Puffery

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Corporations facing federal securities suits can sometimes avoid liability by claiming that their forward-looking statements were so vague or indefinite that they could not have affected the company’s stock price and are therefore not material.  Such statements are not actionable because courts consider them “puffing,” famously described by Judge Learned Hand nearly 100 years ago as “talk which no sensible man takes seriously.”  Though we cannot know today what Judge Hand would think of the civil complaint recently filed by the SEC against several marijuana-company stock promoters, it’s safe to say that this isn’t the kind of ‘puffing’ he had in mind.

The defendants in the SEC civil action are all stock promoters, most of whom operate websites where they promote stocks, including microcap or so-called “penny” stocks.  The SEC alleges that the defendants promoted shares in microcap companies related to the marijuana industry. For example, one of the companies, Hemp Inc., claims to be involved with medical marijuana.  According to the SEC, three of the defendants bought and sold more than 40 million shares in Hemp Inc. in order to give the appearance that there was an active market in the company’s stock.  In reality, the transactions allegedly consisted of wash trades and matched orders.  A wash trade occurs when a security is traded between accounts, but with no actual change in beneficial ownership, while a matched order entails coordinating buy and sell orders to create the appearance of trading activity.  As the defendants were allegedly generating trading activity, they were also allegedly promoting the stock on the Internet, touting “a REAL Possible Gain of OVER 2900%” in Hemp Inc. stock.  Wow, that is high.

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On a Roll: The SEC Continues to Deliver on its Promise to Seek Admissions of Wrongdoing

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The SEC announced last week that it has obtained yet another admission of wrongdoing in connection with an agreement to settle an SEC enforcement action.  This time, Peter A. Jenson, the former COO of Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, admitted that he aided and abetted Harbinger’s CEO, Philip Falcone, in obtaining a fraudulent loan from Harbinger.  Jenson agreed to a $200,000 penalty along with a two-year suspension from practicing as an accountant on behalf of any SEC-regulated entity.  The settlement awaits court approval.

The Jenson settlement is the latest in a series of settlements in which the SEC has obtained admissions of wrongdoing since announcing changes to its “no admit/no deny” settlement policy in June 2013. Other examples include the March 2014 Lions Gate settlement, the February 2014 Scottrade settlement, and the August 2013 Falcone/Harbinger settlement that settled charges related to those Jenson settled last week.    READ MORE →