On Monday, November 16, 2020, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton announced his intention to depart from the agency by the end of 2020. News of Clayton’s decision comes as no real surprise, as it is typical for the SEC Chair to hand the reigns to a successor around the time of…
Never one to hold back, especially when it comes to crypto and blockchain matters, SEC Commissioner Peirce recently explained her views on the SEC’s settlement with Telegram and the agency’s approach to regulating the crypto and blockchain ecosphere generally. Simply put, Peirce disagreed with the Telegram settlement. In her words:…
U.S. broker-dealer activity involving digital assets could implicate various FINRA rules in addition to federal and state securities laws and SEC rules. As most readers likely know by now, whether this activity is of interest to or subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. securities regulators (both federal and state) largely…
In a recent decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Telegram Group Inc. and TON Issuer Inc., the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a motion for a preliminary injunction by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), thereby preventing the distribution to purchasers of…
On February 14, 2019, the Southern District of California entered a preliminary injunction prohibiting Blockvest, LLC (“Blockvest”), a company set up to exchange cryptocurrencies, and its founder, Reginald Buddy Ringgold, III (“Ringgold”), from violating an anti-fraud provision of the federal securities laws. The decision came following the court’s initial denial…
On February 20, 2019, the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued an Order Instituting Cease-And-Desist Proceedings Pursuant To Section 8a Of The Securities Act Of 1933, Making Findings, And Imposing A Cease-And-Desist Order (“Order”) [1] against Gladius Network LLC (“Gladius”) for an initial coin offering…
On November 16, 2018, the Divisions of Corporation Finance, Investment Management, and Trading and Markets of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued a Statement on Digital Asset Securities Issuance and Trading, summarizing recent SEC enforcement actions “involving the intersection of long-standing applications of our federal securities laws and…
Earlier today, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein announced that the President issued an executive order establishing a new Task Force on Market Integrity and Consumer Fraud, comprised of a number of divisions of the Department of Justice (DOJ), including the FBI and various United States Attorney’s Offices as designated…
This past week was a busy one for state securities regulators, the CFTC and the SEC as they continue their focus on rooting out fraud from the digital currency space and crypto- and blockchain-based ventures. Noteworthy developments included (1) the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) announcing a “cryptosweep” –…
In the fall of 2017, the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) each filed actions against Maksim Zaslavskiy for securities fraud in connection with two token offerings, through which he promised token purchasers profits from his companies’ investments in real estate and diamonds. …