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Salvatore Graziano

As readers may recall, in September, the SEC announced that it had revised its policy on whether prospective IPO companies may have their registration statement declared effective if the companies have mandatory arbitration bylaws, as discussed in detail here. In the following guest post, Salvatore Graziano, a partner in the Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman LLC law firm and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee, provides his views on the SEC’s changed policy and suggests the implications the changed policy may have for D&O insurers. My thanks to Sal for allowing me to publish his article on this site. Here is Sal’s article.Continue Reading Guest Post: Will Allowing Companies to Block Shareholder Suits Create a D&O Mess?

It is no secret that SEC Chair Paul Atkins has ideas about how U.S. securities laws could be reformed to “revitalize” America’s capital markets. Among other things, late last year Atkins proposed a number of revisions to the current U.S. public company disclosure regime. Now, in a speech earlier this week, Atkins floated several additional proposed reforms, among other things referring to the possibility of loser-pays bylaws for shareholder suits and of a “safe harbor” for public company disclosures concerning widely publicized events. As discussed below, Atkins’s recent ideas have a long and relevant history. The text of Atkins’s February 17, 2026, speech can be found here.Continue Reading SEC Chair Atkins Proposed Further Securities Litigation and Disclosure Reform

There is no doubt that the SEC under current Chair Paul Atkins has taken a different enforcement approach than under the prior administration. The statistics (at least those through the end of the last fiscal year) show a notable decrease in the number of SEC enforcement actions under the Trump administration.  As questions arise about the current administration’s enforcement approach, including whether the agency’s approach might embolden would-be wrongdoers, one particular question has been with respect to the Director of the agency’s Enforcement Division. Observers have asked whether the division director, Margaret “Meg” Ryan, who was nominated to her position last August, is deliberately leading the division in a hands-off approach.Continue Reading SEC Enforcement Division Director Assures of Continued Vigilance

Mayme Donahue

In recent months, the SEC’s position with respect to AI regulation and enforcement has emerged, with important implications for reporting companies. In the following guest post, Mayme Donohue, a partner in the Hunton Andrews Kurth law firm takes a detailed look at the SEC’s emerging approach and provides specific pointers for reporting companies’ AI-related disclosures. I would like to thank Mayme for allowing me to publish her article as a guest post on this site. Here is Mayme’s article.Continue Reading Guest Post: AI, the SEC, and the 2026 Reporting Season

It is no secret that the SEC under the Trump Administration is taking a very different approach to cryptocurrency than the agency did under the Biden Administration. Indeed, a detailed December 2025 New York Times article (here) made it clear – if there were any doubt — that the administration’s more restrained approach to crypto starts at the very top. But what does the more restrained crypto approach mean in practical terms? A January 22, 2026, report from Cornerstone Research, which can be found here, spells out in detail what it means, both in terms of reduced numbers of crypto-related enforcement actions and in diminished crypto-related recoveries.Continue Reading SEC: Less Crypto Enforcement, Lower Crypto Recoveries

Sarah Abrams

In the following guest post, Sarah Abrams, Head of Claims Baleen Specialty, a division of Bowhead Specialty, examines the question whether the SEC should adopt AI-specific disclosure guidelines with reference to two recent enforcement actions involving tech companies allegedly fraudulent claims about their technology. I would like to thank Sarah for allowing me to publish her article on this site. Here is Sarah’s article.Continue Reading Guest Post: Would Specific SEC Disclosure Guidelines Deter AI-Washing?

The U.S. Supreme Court only rarely agrees to take up consideration of cases involving securities law issues, so it was a noteworthy event when the Court agreed late last week to take up a case involving the SEC’s enforcement powers. As discussed below, the case involves questions of what the SEC has to prove in order to secure disgorgement from alleged wrongdoers. The Court’s ruling in the case, which is captioned Sripetch v. SEC, will address a split in the Circuit Courts on the question of whether the SEC must prove that investors were harmed by the wrongdoers’ acts in order to obtain disgorgement.Continue Reading Supreme Court Agrees to Consider SEC’s Disgorgement Remedy Rights

The directors’ and officers’ liability environment is always changing, but 2025 was a particularly eventful year, with important consequences for the D&O insurance marketplace. The past year’s many developments also have significant implications for what may lie ahead in 2026 – and possibly for years to come.  I have set out below the Top Ten D&O Stories of 2025, with a focus on future implications. Please note that on Thursday, January 15, 2026 at 11:00 am EST, my colleagues Marissa Streckfus, Chris Bertola, and I will be conducting a free, hour-long webinar in which we will discuss The Top Ten D&O Stories of 2025. Registration for the webinar can be found here. Please join us for the webinar.Continue Reading The Top Ten D&O Stories of 2025

The possibility of a securities class action lawsuit being filed against a company after it experiences a data breach is a long-standing risk. For most of 2025, there were relatively few of these kinds of suits filed, at least compared to recent years. However, last week, two different companies – the e-commerce firm Coupang and the application security firm F5 – were each hit with new cybersecurity-related securities class action lawsuits. The new lawsuits have several interesting features, as discussed below, and at a minimum underscore the fact that the threat of these kinds of cybersecurity suits is ongoing.Continue Reading Two Tech Companies Hit with Data Breach-Related Securities Suits