On August 28, 2019, the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco granted the motion of Tezos Stiftung (“Tezos”) to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s claims. The putative class action complaint alleged that Tezos violated Sections 12(a) and 15 of…
On August 12, 2019, the 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 with respect to SimplyVital Health, Inc. (“SimplyVital”) in connection with token sales allegedly conducted in violation of Sections 5(a) and 5(c)…
On July 26, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) published a release announcing that it has begun to send notices to virtual currency traders that potentially failed to: (i) report income and pay the resulting tax from virtual currency transactions; or (ii) properly report their virtual currency transactions. In its…
On July 25, 2019, the SEC issued its second no-action letter in connection with a token sale to Pocketful of Quarters. Pocketful of Quarters is a company founded to address “fragmentation” of in-game credits and currencies in the video game industry through a centralized platform built with blockchain technology. That…
YouNow, Inc. (File No. 024-11018) On July 11, 2019, one day after the qualification of Blockstack’s offering, the SEC qualified the second offering of digital tokens under Regulation A+. YouNow, Inc. sought to offer an aggregate of 178,000,000 “Props Tokens” at a deemed price of $0.1369 per token in (1)…
On July 10, 2019, the SEC qualified the first-ever offering of digital tokens under Regulation A+. Blockstack PBC sought to offer up to 180,333,333 “Stacks Tokens” in the following ways: (1) 78,333,333 Stacks Tokens at a discounted price of US $0.12 per token (up to a maximum of US $3,000 per holder)…
On June 21, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut certified a class of plaintiffs alleging violations of the Exchange Act and the Connecticut Uniform Securities Act in connection with their investments in products of GAW Miners, LLC, and ZenMiner, LLC. GAW Miners and ZenMiner “purchase[d] virtual…
On June 4, 2019, the SEC filed an enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Kik Interactive, Inc. (“Kik”) for violation of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act for the sale of unregistered securities. The SEC seeks a permanent injunction,…
On Apr. 11, 2019, the plan d’action pour la croissance et la transformation des entreprises (Action Plan for Business Growth and Transformation act), also known as Loi PACTE, has introduced in French law the possibility for issuers of initial coin offering (ICOs) to apply for an optional visa from the…
Last week, Northeast Bank became the fourth banking organization in two years to eliminate its holding company. Previously, ZB, N.A. (now Zions Bancorporation, N.A.) (September 2018), BancorpSouth Bank (October 2017), and Bank of the Ozarks (June 2017) also eliminated their holding companies. All of the transactions were motivated, at least…