Monthly Archives: March 2020

Partner John Murray recently published an alert on guidance from the SEC Division of Enforcement regarding the unique risks of insider trading posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The full alert can be found here. More

In response to the widespread outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has granted some flexibility to issuers with respect to their obligations to file periodic reports and deliver proxy and information statements to shareholders under the Securities Exchange Act.  On March 4, the SEC issued an exemptive order granting affected public companies, subject to certain conditions, an additional 45 days to file or deliver those materials. … More

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Liu v. SEC, which concerns whether, or to what extent, the SEC may ask courts to disgorge defendants’ ill-gotten gains. As I discussed in a previous post, disgorgement accounts for most of the SEC’s money judgments, and its elimination would be a significant victory for defendants. Yet if oral argument is any indication,… More

District Court Finds Insufficient Evidence That He Acted As Agent of U.S. Subsidiary

On February 26, 2020, a federal judge in Connecticut granted in part the motion for acquittal of a former senior executive with the French power and transportation company Alstom S.A., overturning a jury verdict that found him guilty on seven counts of violating or conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).1 As we reported in a prior alert,… More