Trump administration

Subscribe to Trump administration via RSS
Michael W. Peregrine
Ashley Hoff

On May 12, 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Criminal Division announced significant changes in its policies on investigating and prosecuting white collar crime. In its memo announcing the new policies, and in subsequent statements, the agency signaled its intent to refine enforcement priorities, encourage self-disclosure, and increase efficiency in investigations. In the following guest post, Michael W. Peregrine and Ashley Hoff of the McDermott Will & Emery law firm review the agency’s new policies and consider the policies’ potential director and officer liability implications. I would like to thank Michael and Ashley for allowing me to publish their article 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 Michael and Ashley’s article.Continue Reading Guest Post: New DOJ White Collar Enforcement Policy Pressures Caremark Obligations

As the Trump administration has launched, postponed, reinstated, and negotiated its evolving tariff policies, companies have been forced to deal with a changing and unpredictable business environment. As I have previously discussed, these changing circumstances not only have implications for companies’ business operations and financial results, they also have implications for companies’ potential liability exposures as well. One important area of tariff-related potential liability has to do with companies’ disclosures – that is, what the companies are saying about the impact of the tariffs on their operations and financial results.Continue Reading Tariffs and Disclosures: Corporate Risks in a Global Trade War

Sarah Abrams

In the following guest post, Sarah Abrams, Head of Claims Baleen Specialty, a division of Bowhead Specialty, takes a look at important questions that are arising in litigation challenging Trump administration acts with regard to “DEI” — including one judge’s question about what exactly DEI is. The administration’s answer to the question could have important implications for companies, as discussed below. I would like to thank Sarah for allowing me to publish her 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 Sarah’s article. Continue Reading Guest Post: What is DEI?

Among the many executive orders launched at the outset of the current Trump administration was the January 23, 2025 Executive Order that declared the administration’s commitment to maintaining the U.S. at the “forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation.” The Executive Order set out the administration’s commitment to removing policies and directives that “act as barriers to American AI innovation.”

The Executive Order meant a variety of things when it referred to removing barriers, and the statement does at least raise the question about what the administration’s – and in particular, the SEC’s – enforcement approach to AI will be, if the goal is to remove barriers. As discussed below, there are signs to suggest that the administration will continue to monitor and address AI-related misrepresentations, notwithstanding its commitment to removing barriers to AI innovation.  Continue Reading What About AI-Related Enforcement Under the Trump Administration?

Burkhard Fassbach

As this blog’s readers know, DEI as a topic has proven to be a high priority under the new Trump administration. The administration’s approach to DEI is important not only for domestic U.S. companies, but also for multinational companies with U.S. subsidiaries. In the following guest post, Burkhard Fassbach examines the DEI-related issues for multinational companies. Burkhard is a D&O lawyer in private practice in Germany. I would like to thank Burkhard 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 site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Burkhard’s article.Continue Reading Guest Post: What Multinational Corporations Should Know About DEI Risks in the US

Even before the start of the new Trump administration, corporate DEI initiatives faced increasing scrutiny. With the new administration, DEI initiatives face even greater scrutiny. Following Trump’s January inauguration, the President and the Attorney General declared that the new administration intends to target what they have called “illegal DEI.” The administration’s approach creates regulatory and enforcement risks for companies and their executives with respect to DEI issues. And as detailed in a recent law firm memo, these developments could also give rise to increased corporate and securities litigation risks as well, as discussed below. The Winston and Strawn law firm’s April 28, 2025, memo entitled “Securities Litigation Risk in the Evolving DEI Landscape” can be found here.Continue Reading Corporate and Securities Litigation Risk in the New DEI Environment

On April 21, 2025, Paul Atkins, President Trump’s nominee, was officially sworn in as the 34th Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Atkins, who previously served as an SEC Commissioner from 2002 to 2008 during the George W. Bush administration, brings extensive prior SEC experience to his new post. In many ways that are already in evidence at the SEC in the early days of the Trump administration, the new leadership is likely to result in many significant changes in direction at the agency.Continue Reading Paul Atkins Chair Sworn In as SEC Chair

Readers of this blog know well that the current administration has been issuing a significant number and wide variety of memos and orders, including a March 22, 2025 memo pertaining to alleged law firm misconduct and Executive Orders focused on specific law firms. The law firm memo and the Executive Orders potentially represent a significant concern for affected firms. The following guest post – written by E. Theresa Panensky, West Region Leader, Claims Advocate of the Claims & Legal Group – WTW FINEX; Scott M. Lupiani, Partner, Litigation, Pierson Ferdinand, LLP; and Larry Fine, Management Liability Coverage Leader, WTW FINEX – examines the law firm-related memorandum and orders and considers the insurance implications for affected firms. A version of this article previously was published as a WTW client alert. 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: Insurance Issues Related to Executive Orders

In a move that the Wall Street Journal described as having the effect of “bringing down the curtain on U.S. support for the turbocharged globalization that powered the world economy for decades,” on April 2, 2025, President Trump announced the imposition of massive new tariff duties on what the Journal described as “trillions of dollars in imports.” The U.S.’s imposition of these tariffs has huge implications for international trade; the U.S. economy; the economies of other countries around the world; and the fortunes and prospects of individual companies seeking to operate in an increasingly fraught global economy. These developments also have significant implications for the potential liabilities of companies and their directors and officers, as discussed below.Continue Reading Massive New U.S. Tariffs:  What Are the Potential D&O Liability Implications?

It was no secret that the crypto enforcement approach was going to change under the Trump administration. Indeed, one of Trump’s first acts upon returning to the White House in January was to sign an executive order calculated to try to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world.” The SEC has likewise made it clear that under the new administration the agency will also be taking a new approach to crypto. The acting SEC leadership has already made a number of crypto-friendly moves – among other things,  the new leadership disbanded the agency’s Crypto Enforcement Task Force. The SEC has also dismissed pending cases against Binance (here) and Coinbase (here). As discussed below, the agency recently has taken even further crypto friendly actions – all of which has at least one observer to ask whether the SEC crypto pull back has gone too far?Continue Reading Sounding the Alarm on the SEC’s New Crypto Approach