Southern District of New York

Pro-Golfer Phil Mickelson Pays $1M to SEC to Settle Civil Insider Trading Claims, But Escapes Criminal Charges in Light of Newman

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On Thursday, May 19, 2016, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the arrest of renowned sports bettor William “Billy” T. Walters on an alleged years-long insider trading scheme conducted with his friend and business partner, Thomas C. Davis.  According to the indictment, from 2008 to 2014, Mr. Walters executed a series of profitable stock trades in Dean Foods and Darden Restaurants based on inside information repeatedly and systematically provided to him by Mr. Davis.  The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that these trades netted Mr. Walters over $40 million and charged him with conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud.

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The Ripple Effects of U.S. v. Newman Continue: SEC Lifts Administrative Bar on Downstream Insider Trading Tippee and Tipper Requests that Third Circuit Vacate SEC Settlement

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The ripple effects of the Second Circuit’s landmark insider trading decision, United States v. Newman, 773 F.3d 438 (2d Cir. 2014), were felt again last week.  On Tuesday, February 23, 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or the “Commission”) ruled that Former Neuberger Berman Analyst Sandeep “Sandy” Goyal, whom the SEC previously barred from the securities industry after he pled guilty to insider trading, could participate in the industry again. The SEC’s rare decision to lift an administrative bar order resulted from Newman, (previously discussed at length here), which led to Goyal’s criminal conviction being vacated and the civil claims against him being dropped by the SEC.  Newman raised the bar for what prosecutors in tipper/tippee insider trading cases have to show by holding that tipper/tippee liability requires the tipper to receive a “personal benefit” amounting to a quid pro quo or pecuniary benefit in exchange for the tip and the tippee to know of that benefit.  Despite the SEC’s decision to drop the administrative bar against Goyal in light of Newman, as recently as SEC Speaks on February 19-20, 2016, SEC Deputy of Enforcement Stephanie Avakian affirmed that insider trading cases “continue[] to be a priority” for the Commission.   Nonetheless, the ripple effects of Newman continue to call the government’s ability to successfully bring both criminal and civil cases into question.

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Judge Berman Deflates SEC’s ALJ Appointment Process

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United States District Court Judge Richard M. Berman of the Southern District of New York has been making headlines in recent weeks as he presides over the highly publicized case between the National Football League (“NFL”) and National Football League Players Association (“NFLPA”) regarding the suspension of New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady over his alleged role in “Deflategate.”  Taking a page from the Patriot’s playbook, Judge Berman recently deflated the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and its controversial administrative court forum.

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Remote Tippees Beware: Even if the DOJ Can’t Reach You After Newman, The SEC Can

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The fall-out from the Second Circuit’s decision in U.S. v. Newman continued last week in SEC v. Payton, when Southern District of New York Judge Jed S. Rakoff denied a motion to dismiss an SEC civil enforcement action against two former brokers, Daryl Payton and Benjamin Durant, one of whom (Payton) had just had his criminal plea for the same conduct reversed in light of Newman.  Although the United States may be unable to make criminal charges stick against some alleged insider traders under a standard of “willfulness,” Judge Rakoff found that the SEC had sufficiently alleged that related conduct of the two brokers at the end of the tip line was “reckless,” satisfying the SEC’s lower civil standard.

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The Continuing Fall-Out from the Second Circuit’s Insider Trading Decision in Newman

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Wall Street

Last week, a New York federal judge struck another blow to prosecutorial efforts to secure insider trading convictions in tipper-tippee cases. As discussed in detail here, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York suffered a high-profile defeat in an insider trading case last month, when the Second Circuit issued its decision in U.S. v. Newman, No. 13-1837, 2014 WL 6911278 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2014). In Newman, the Second Circuit found that prosecutors in tipper-tippee cases must prove both that the tipper (the individual disclosing inside information in breach of a duty) received a personal benefit in exchange for the disclosure, and that the tippee (the individual receiving and trading on the information) knew about the tipper’s receipt of that benefit. In the wake of Newman, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and others expressed concerns that the decision could limit future insider trading prosecutions.

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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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The Smack of IndyMac: Second Circuit’s Decision in IndyMac Creates Palpable Effect in SDNY

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As noted in a previous blog, in Police & Fire Retirement Systems of City of Detroit v. IndyMac MBS, Inc., 721 F.3d 95 (2d Cir. 2013), the Second Circuit held that tolling under American Pipe – which plaintiffs had often used to revive claims by relying on earlier-filed class actions – does not apply to statutes of repose, including Section 13 of the ’33 Act.   The significance of IndyMac was felt in New Jersey Carpenters Health Fund, et al. v. Residential Capital, et al., No. 08 CV 8781, 08 CV 5093 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 18, 2013), where Hon. Harold Baer, Jr. was asked to reconsider his pre-IndyMac order denying defendants’ motion to dismiss a securities class action involving mortgage-backed securities.  Upon reconsideration, Judge Baer dismissed one of the defendants, Deutsche Securities Inc., and several claims against other defendants, finding that intervening plaintiffs did not have standing to sue because the claims were not filed within the ’33 Act’s three-year statute of repose.  As the case highlights, IndyMac’s effect will continue to be felt in pending cases – Judge Baer held that it should be applied retroactively – and will significantly limit the timing of future lawsuits.

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Concerned About NSA Snooping? Perhaps You Should Be More Concerned About the DOJ and SEC

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Wall Street

In 2008, Rajat Gupta made a handful of short phone calls to his friend Raj Rajaratnam. The information that Gupta conveyed to Rajaratnam in those phone calls is now likely to cost Gupta millions of dollars, two years in prison, and the loss of his livelihood. These are the fateful consequences of the government’s use of wiretapping to uncover evidence of insider trading on Wall Street.

In June 2012, after a weeks-long trial and relying heavily on recorded conversations between Gupta and Rajaratnam, a jury convicted Gupta of three counts of federal securities fraud and one count of criminal conspiracy. The jury found that Gupta, a former director of Goldman Sachs, had provided Rajaratnam with material non-public information regarding Goldman’s then-unreported financial results and an imminent investment by Berkshire Hathaway at the height of the financial crisis. Though the court found that Gupta did not receive “one penny” in return for providing the information, he was convicted and ultimately sentenced by Judge Jed Rakoff to two years in prison and assessed a $5 million fine, a heavy penalty for his gratuitous generosity to his friend, Rajaratnam.  To prove insider trading, the government is not required to prove that the “tippee” receive any direct financial benefit in recompense for transmitting material nonpublic information in violation of a duty of nondisclosure.

It is important to note that Gupta’s brief phone calls, which later became the key evidence used against Gupta in the criminal trial, were recorded by federal criminal prosecutors without Gupta’s knowledge or consent. (The SEC can seek to obtain wiretap evidence from criminal proceedings through civil discovery.)  While the nation debates NSA snooping, this is a reminder that the Department of Justice could be listening to and recording your most sensitive domestic telephone conversations with court authorization. Gupta’s criminal prosecution was only possible because federal law enforcement officials had obtained warrants to record telephone communications of Gupta’s friend, Rajaratnam – telephone conversations that happened to include Gupta – based on evidence of possible insider trading. Gupta’s criminal conviction was then used to underpin his civil liability. The use of federal wire taps, previously the weapon of choice in organized crime prosecution, to generate the evidence needed to pursue both criminal and civil insider trading cases is a watershed moment in securities enforcement. READ MORE →

Where There’s Smoke, There’s FIRREA

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Few can ignite a legal firestorm like U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York. Last week, in a mortgage fraud suit against Bank of America and Countrywide, Judge Rakoff refused to dismiss a novel claim for civil penalties under the obscure Financial Institutions Reform Recovery Enforcement Act (“FIRREA”). The ruling will surely encourage civil prosecutors to make wider use of FIRREA, which provides a generous ten-year statute of limitations and low burden of proof, in pursuing financial fraud cases.

FIRREA was enacted in response to the Savings and Loan debacle of the 1980s, as well as the fraud scandals that emerged during that era. The statute includes a clause imposing a civil penalty for mail and wire fraud and other violations “affecting a federally insured financial institution.” Until recently the civil penalty provision has been ignored by prosecutors, leaving courts without occasion to decide what exactly the statute means by “affecting” a financial institution. READ MORE →