SEC

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 →

SEC Gives Itself the Home Court Advantage in an Accounting Fraud / Internal Controls Action Against a Corporate CEO

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Matrix

An otherwise mundane SEC announcement on July 30, 2014 of an enforcement action charging a public company CEO and CFO with accounting fraud and internal controls violations is significant because the SEC is proceeding against the non-settling individual (the CEO) in an administrative proceeding rather than in federal court.  While not unprecedented, it has been, to date, exceedingly rare for the Commission to proceed against an unregulated entity or person administratively rather than in federal court.  This decision reflects the Commission’s and Enforcement Division’s recently, but frequently, stated intent to bring more administrative proceedings that previously would have been brought in federal court, now that the Commission has expanded remedies under Dodd-Frank Act.  The decision also raises significant due process issues.

The action itself charges Marc Sherman and Edward Cummings, CEO and former CFO, respectively, of QSGI Inc., a Florida-based computer equipment company, with violation of the antifraud and other provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.  According to the Commission’s press release, Sherman and Cummings claimed they had disclosed all significant deficiencies in internal controls over financial reporting to the company’s independent auditors, but in fact did not disclose or direct anyone else to disclose ongoing inventory and accounts receivable issues or improper acceleration of recognition and the resulting falsification of QSGI’s books and records.  The Commission also alleges that the executives signed SEC filings and Sarbanes-Oxley certifications that were rendered false and misleading due to the above issues.  Cummings entered into an administrative settlement with the SEC, agreeing to a cease and desist order, a $23,000 civil penalty, a 5-year officer and director bar, and a 5-year bar on appearing or practicing before the Commission as an accountant.  Sherman did not settle, and will instead litigate against the Division of Enforcement in an administrative proceeding. READ MORE →

Swimming in the Deep End: A Primer on Dark Pools

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Matrix

“Dark pools of liquidity” have recently become the focus of increased regulatory scrutiny, including a number of high-profile enforcement actions related to these alternative trading systems.   This increased scrutiny follows on the heels of Michael Lewis’s popular book, “Flash Boys,” which introduced the public at large to dark pools through its allegations that high frequency trading firms use dark pools to game the system to the detriment of common investors.   But what exactly are dark pools and do they have any redeeming qualities?  This post provides a primer on the benefits and disadvantages of dark pools and why they matter.

In general, “dark pools of liquidity” are private alternative forums for trading securities that are typically used by large institutional investors and operate outside of traditional “lit” exchanges like NASDAQ and the NYSE.  The key characteristic of dark pools is that, unlike “lit” exchanges, the identity and amount of individual trades are not revealed.  The pools typically do not publicly display quotes or provide prices at which orders will be executed.   Dark pools, and trading in dark pools, have proliferated in recent years due in part to the fragmentation of financial trading venues coupled with advancements in technology, including online trading.  There are currently over 40 dark pools operating in the United States.  Around half of these are owned by large broker-dealers and are operated for the benefit of their clients and for their own proprietary traders.  According to the SEC, the percentage of total trading volume executed in dark venues has increased from approximately 25% in 2009 to approximately 35% today.

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Patience is a Virtue: District Court Suggests that the SEC “Wait and See” Before Seeking Certain No-Admit, No-Deny Settlements

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On June 18, 2014, Judge Victor Marrero of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved the SEC’s no-admit, no-deny consent decrees in its insider trading case against CR Intrinsic Investors, LLC and affiliated entities.  In approving the decrees, however, the court called on the SEC to take a “wait and see” approach in cases involving parallel criminal actions arising out of the same transactions alleged in its complaint.

The decision follows the much-anticipated opinion in SEC v. Citigroup Global Markets (“Citigroup IV”), in which the Second Circuit vacated Judge Rakoff’s order refusing to approve a no-admit, no-deny consent decree between the SEC and Citigroup.  The Second Circuit found that district courts are required to enter proposed SEC consent decrees if the decrees are “fair and reasonable,” and if the public interest is not disserved.  A court must focus on whether the consent decree is procedurally proper, and cannot find that a proposed decree disserves the public based on its disagreement with the SEC’s use of discretionary no-admit, no-deny settlements.

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SEC Charges Hedge Fund Adviser with Whistleblower Retaliation under Dodd-Frank

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On June 16, 2014, the SEC issued its first-ever charge of whistleblower retaliation under section 922 of the Dodd-Frank Act, charging a hedge fund advisor and its owner with “engaging in prohibited principal transactions and then retaliating against the employee who reported the trading activity to the SEC.” READ MORE →

Flash Rules: Is A Wall Street Reform on the Horizon or is the SEC Merely Reacting to the Latest Media Headline?

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Wall Street

Michael Lewis’ new book Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt has caused a commotion on Wall Street, on Capitol Hill, and with law enforcement agencies. The SEC is the latest government agency to examine and propose new rules on alternative exchanges and high-frequency trading. The SEC’s latest proposals and enforcement actions raise questions about the agency’s plans to effectively regulate and enforce these activities and its ability to do so.

In Flash Boys, Michael Lewis—author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big Short—follows a “small group of Wall Street investors” who he says “have figured out that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders and that, post-financial crisis, the markets have become not more free but less, and more controlled by the Big Wall Street banks.” High frequency trading is a type of trading using sophisticated technological tools and computer algorithms to rapidly trade securities in fractions of a second to profit from the slightest market blips. High frequency trading is done over traditional exchanges. In contrast, dark pools are alternative electronic trading systems conducted outside traditional exchanges that institutional investors use, sometimes to hide their trading intentions or to move the market with large orders.

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SEC Bats 0-for-2 on Insider Trading

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A California federal jury sided against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, June 6, finding the founder of storage device maker STEC Inc. not guilty on insider trading charges.  This is the second insider trading loss in a week for the SEC, following a May 30 defeat in which a New York federal jury rejected insider trading allegations against three defendants, including hedge fund manager Nelson Obus.

In STEC, the SEC alleged that founder Manouchehr Moshayedi made a secret deal with a customer to conceal a drop in demand in advance of a secondary offering.  According to the complaint, Moshayedi knew that one of STEC’s key customers, EMC Inc., would demand fewer of STEC’s most profitable products than analysts expected.  The SEC alleged that he then made a secret deal that allowed EMC to take a larger share of inventory in exchange for a steep, undisclosed discount.

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Second Circuit Says Pragmatism Trumps “Cold, Hard” Facts, Limits District Courts’ Powers in Reviewing SEC Settlements

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Matrix

Summer is coming, but this is probably not the vacation Southern District of New York Judge Jed Rakoff had in mind.  On June 4, 2014, the Second Circuit vacated Judge Rakoff’s order refusing to approve the SEC’s $285 million settlement with Citigroup regarding a 2007 collateralized debt obligation (“CDO”) offering.  The highly anticipated opinion – the decision did not come down until more than a year after oral argument – sharply limits the instances in which a court may reject or even modify a Commission settlement, even when the SEC does not extract an admission of facts or liability.  The decision, which comes at a time when the SEC has been seeking and obtaining more admissions from public companies in connection with settlements, is sure to have a significant impact on the agency’s future approach toward settlements and admissions.

Though the facts of the underlying case are almost a footnote at this point, the SEC had alleged that in 2007, Citigroup negligently represented its role and economic interest in structuring a fund made up of tranches of CDOs.  As with similar allegations against Goldman Sachs and its ABACUS CDO, the SEC alleged that Citigroup hand-picked many of the mortgage-related assets in the fund while telling investors that the assets were selected by an independent advisor.  The SEC further alleged that Citigroup chose mortgage-backed assets that it projected would decline in value and in which it had taken short positions.  Thus, according to the SEC, Citigroup sold investors assets on the hope the CDOs would increase in value, while Citigroup had selected and bet against these same assets on the belief they would actually decrease in value.  The SEC alleged that Citigroup was able to reap a substantial profit from shorting the assets it selected for the fund, while fund investors lost millions.

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If the SEC Misses the SOL, It’s SOL (Sorry, Out of Luck) – District Court Holds Statute of Limitations Is Jurisdictional and Applies to SEC Disgorgement and Injunctive Relief Requests

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The SEC suffered a blow very recently when Judge James Lawrence King of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered summary judgment  dismissing the entirety of its alleged Ponzi scheme case on statute of limitations grounds.  SEC v. Graham, 2014 WL 1891418 (S.D. Fla. May 12, 2014).  The court’s order is a significant application of last year’s Supreme Court decision in Gabelli v. SEC, 133 S. Ct. 1216 (2013), in that (i) it applies the applicable statute of limitations to sanctions that have usually been considered equitable, rather than punitive, in nature; and (ii) it holds that the applicable statute of limitations is a jurisdictional threshold on which the SEC bears the burden, not an affirmative defense on which the defendant bears the burden.

In Graham, the SEC alleged that five defendants defrauded nearly 1,400 investors of more than $300 million by marketing unregistered securities as real estate investments and guaranteeing an immediate 15% profit and future rental revenue on certain resort properties.  According to the SEC, the defendants were using the new deposits to pay earlier investors in a classic Ponzi-scheme.  After the defendants abandoned their efforts with the collapse of the real estate and credit markets in 2007, the SEC embarked on a seven-year investigation, and ultimately brought suit in January of 2013.  The SEC alleged five counts of violations of federal securities laws, and sought not only civil penalties but also injunctive relief and disgorgement of all ill-gotten gains.  The defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground that the five-year statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. § 2462 time-barred all of the SEC’s claims.  Section 2462 states, “Except as otherwise provided by Act of Congress, an action, suit or proceeding for the enforcement of any civil fine, penalty, or forfeiture, pecuniary or otherwise, shall not be entertained unless commenced within five years from the date when the claim first accrued ….”

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Halliburton Watch – Highlights from the Amicus Filings

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This is the second post in our series on the Supreme Court’s coming ruling in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., Case No. 13-317.  Here’s our post from last week concerning background information about the case.

As the securities litigation bar holds its breath while the Supreme Court deliberates the fate of the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance, we take a moment to review some of the positions submitted by amici in Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc.

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