The SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower received a record 6,911 whistleblower tips during FY 2020, which ended September 30, 2020. The nearly 7,000 reports represent a nearly 33% increase over the number of tips received during the prior fiscal year, according to the Office’s recently released annual report. The Office also made awards representing a record high annual dollar value and to a record annual number of individual award recipients during the fiscal year.  A copy of the November 16, 2020 report can be found here. Continue Reading SEC: Record Number of Whistleblower Tips and Awards During FY 2020

In reliance on the federal forum provision (FFP) in the company’s corporate charter, a California Superior Court judge has granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the state court ’33 Act liability action pending against Uber. The ruling represents the second occasion on which a California state court has dismissed a state court ’33 Act liability action in reliance on an FFP in the corporate defendant’s charter, providing further hope that the adoption of FFPs may help companies address the Cyan problem – that is, the possibility of having to face identical ’33 Act liability actions in both state and federal court. The California Superior Court’s November 16, 2020 order in the Uber case can be found here. Continue Reading State Court Securities Suit Against Uber Dismissed Based on Federal Forum Provision

Technology-based education firm K12, Inc., which hoped to be able to profit from the pandemic-related shift to virtual learning , has been hit with a securities class action lawsuit alleging that the company’s share price declined after school systems using its platform to address their online learning needs allegedly experienced disappointing results. A copy of the shareholder plaintiff’s November 19, 2020 complaint can be found here. Continue Reading Online Learning Firm Hit with COVID-19-Related Securities Suit

Jonathan Legge

In the following guest post, Jonathan Legge, Senior Vice President at RT ProExec, takes a look at the ways in which the Representations and Warranties (R&W) underwriting process should be adapted to meet the needs of “strategic” R&W insurance buyers. I would like to thank Jon for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Jon’s article. Continue Reading Guest Post: The R&W Process for Strategic Buyers

As I noted at the time, earlier this month the SEC released its enforcement activity report for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020. While the report fully detailed the agency’s enforcement activity, the report did not break out statistics reflecting the SEC’s actions against publicly traded companies. A November 18, 2020 report from Cornerstone Research, written in collaboration with the NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business, entitled “SEC Enforcement Activity: Public Companies and Subsidiaries Fiscal Year 2020 Update” (here), takes a detailed look at SEC enforcement activity involving publicly traded companies and their subsidiaries during FY 2020.

 

As was the case with enforcement activity overall, enforcement activity involving publicly traded companies declined during FY 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, but after a sharp drop in activity during the first half of the fiscal year, enforcement activity rebounded toward the end of the second half. The agency’s $1.6 billion in public company monetary settlements slightly exceeded the equivalent figures for FY 2019. Cornerstone Research’s November 18, 2020 press release about the report can be found here. Continue Reading SEC Public Company Enforcement Actions Decreased in FY 2020, But Recoveries Increased

Michael W. Peregrine

In the following guest post, Michael W. Peregrine, a partner at the McDermott, Will, Emery law firm, takes a look at the impact the administration of President-Elect Joe Biden may have on corporate governance. This article is based on a feature Peregrine originally posted on Forbes.com and available here. I would like to thank Michael for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Michael’s article. Continue Reading Guest Post: Biden in the Boardroom: What to Expect On Corporate Governance From the New Administration

As I have noted in prior posts (most recently here), there has been a wave of Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) offerings this year. And as I have also noted, with all of the SPAC offerings have come problems and concerns. As discussed in the following guest post from Carrie O’Neil, Doru Gavril, and Boris Feldman, the D&O insurance marketplace has struggled to respond to these developments, and a number of different approaches to SPAC transactions have emerged. Carrie is a Senior Vice President at CAC Specialty and serves as a product development leader and claims advocate within its Legal and Claims Practice. Doru is a partner at the Freshfields law firm. Boris is a partner and head of the U.S. Technology practice at Freshfields. A version of this article was published on A Fresh Take, Freshfields’ blog on M&A, litigation, and corporate governance. The article also appeared on the CAC Specialty blog, CACConnect, here. I would like to thank the authors for allowing me to publish their article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is the authors’ article. Continue Reading Guest Post: Mind the (SPAC) Gap

When I heard that moves by Chinese financial regulators had forced the Shangahi securities market to suspend Ant Group’s massive planned IPO, my first thought was that, if the offering had been planned for the U.S. the called halt to the offering might well give rise to a “failure to launch” claim. However, since Ant Group’s IPO was planned for the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges, the possibility of a claim seemed remote. As it has turned out, however, a failure to launch claim has been filed in the U.S. after all, with the added twist that the corporate defendant in the lawsuit is not Ant Group itself, but instead it is Alibaba, the U.S.-listed Chinese Internet commerce company that owns 33% of Ant Group’s equity interest. As discussed below, the new lawsuit against Alibaba has a number of interesting features. Continue Reading Ant Group’s Scrubbed IPO Triggers U.S. Failure to Launch Claim Against Alibaba

Richard M. Leisner

After many decades of law practice, legal veteran Richard M. Leisner, a Senior Member in the Trenam law firm in Tampa, found that increasingly he has been called upon to be a sounding board and resource on proposed corporate transactions. In the following guest post, which is the third installment in a three-part series, Richie recounts a number of “open door encounters” – that is, occasions when colleagues came to his office to discuss pending matters. There are a number of important lessons from the tales described below. A version of this article previously was published in Trenam Law News & Insights, available at www.trenam.com. I would like to thank Richie for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Richie’s article. Continue Reading Guest Post: Corporate Governance Tales From (Virtual) Open Door Encounters – Part 3

Although some cybersecurity incident-related securities lawsuits have proven to be successful for plaintiffs (refer, for example, here), many of these lawsuits have not gotten very far. The latest data breach-related securities lawsuit to hit the skids is suit filed last year against Zendesk. As discussed below, on November 9, 2020, Northern District of California Judge Charles Breyer granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in the Zendesk lawsuit. A copy of Judge Breyer’s order can be found here. Continue Reading Zendesk Data Breach-Related Securities Lawsuit Dismissed