Articles Posted in Securities Fraud

The recent announcement of securities fraud charges against Trevor Milton, the former CEO of Nikola Corporation, may prove to be the first in a line of similar cases involving electric vehicle (“EV”) companies, and more broadly, companies that go public via SPACs. This situation highlights the importance of careful investment decision making, particularly in the…

As the popularity of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing booms, the SEC continues to make its support clear. In fact, this past Wednesday, July 28th, SEC Chair Gary Gensler spoke at length on the regulator’s ESG and climate risk disclosure plans as part of a Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) event. The PRI is…

Margin debt levels within the market are on a meteoric rise, with June 2021 finishing out at a record-high $882 Billion. [1] But such an intense rise in margin debt may not be much cause to celebrate; instead, history tells us that this trend may indicate an imminent market downturn. Margin debt can be simply…

On June 30, 2021, FINRA ordered an approximately $70 Million financial penalty against Robinhood Financial LLC, the highest such penalty ever levied by the regulatory organization.[1] Through its investigation of the firm, FINRA charged Robinhood with numerous violations which had resulted in significant losses to their customers. While Robinhood neither confirmed nor denied the validity…

FINRA Dispute Resolution arbitration offers a fair and expedited dispute resolution pathway for investors looking to resolve a dispute with their broker or securities firm. The arbitration process works as an alternative to traditional litigation and operates completely independent of the court system. As a result, this process often allows parties to save on both…

Margin investing offers the opportunity to super-charge investments, but it also holds quite a bit of risk. Recent market volatility has shed a light on some of these risks, particularly for users of app-based platforms like Robinhood. Let’s consider an example of margin investing with Robinhood. An investor deposits $5,000 cash into a margin account,…

In the span of the last two months, a digital piece of art sold for nearly $70 million, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, sold his first tweet for $2.8 million, and a digital Lebron James basketball card went for $208,000. What do these three massive sales have in common? Each transaction was for a non-fungible…

As they begin to move into the mainstream, it has become clear that cryptocurrencies pose a unique set of regulatory and legal challenges for investors and regulation agencies alike. In the past week alone, two high-profile securities fraud cases tied to cryptocurrency have come to light, and the total number of enforcement actions by the…

It has been a tumultuous week in the investment world, with rallies among a gaggle of unlikely stocks, spurred on by a group of even more unlikely investors – retail investors who have banded together on the popular social media site, Reddit. As has been widely reported this week, when Reddit retail investors discovered that…

In July 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission made a proposal to vastly change the reporting requirements of hedge funds. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposal would permit hedge funds with less than $3.5 billion in assets to stop reporting their holdings in quarterly reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this time, the…