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The lawsuit is the SEC's second in two days against a major crypto exchange, following its case against Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and founder Changpeng Zhao. Crypto companies including Coinbase have said SEC rules are unclear, and the regulator is overreaching by asserting oversight of their industry. Coinbase customers pulled more than $57 million from the exchange within a couple of hours of the filing, according to data firm Nansen. The SEC said Coinbase traded at least 13 crypto assets that are securities that should have been registered, including tokens such as Solana, Cardano and Polygon. The case is SEC v Coinbase Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No.
Persons: Coinbase, Binance, Changpeng Zhao, Gary Gensler's, Gensler, Paul Grewal, Coinbase's, Nansen, Dado Ruvic, Gurbir Grewal, Kristin Smith, Jonathan Stempel, Hannah Lang, Michelle Price, Manya, Jason Neely, Louise Heavens, Chizu Nomiyama, Nick Zieminski Organizations: YORK, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, SEC, CNBC, Global Inc, Reuters Graphics, REUTERS, Coinbase, New, Blockchain Association, Court, Southern District of, Manya Saini, Thomson Locations: U.S, California, Manhattan, Solana, Cardano, New Jersey, Southern District, Southern District of New York, New York, Washington ,, Bengaluru
“Coinbase has elevated its interest in increasing its profits over investors’ interests, and over compliance with the law and the regulatory framework that governs the securities markets and was created to protect investors and the U.S. capital markets,” the filing said. said Coinbase has made billions facilitating the sale of crypto assets as an unregistered exchange, but deprived investors of significant protections. “You simply can’t ignore the rules because you don’t like them or because you’d prefer different ones: the consequences for the investing public are far too great,” Gurbir S. Grewal, the director of the S.E.C.’s enforcement division, said in a statement. The action is consistent with the S.E.C.’s long-held view that most crypto products are no different from stocks, bonds and other securities and must comply with U.S. laws. That means the firms that operate as exchanges and provide a platform for trading and selling crypto products must be registered like any exchange or brokerage that facilitates stock or bond trading.
Persons: , Coinbase, Grewal Locations: U.S, Manhattan
Companies Coinbase Global Inc FollowMay 30 (Reuters) - A former product manager for Coinbase Global Inc (COIN.O) and his brother have agreed to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charges related to insider trading of crypto asset securities. A lawyer for Ishan Wahi declined to comment on the settlement. Ishan Wahi was sentenced to two years in prison earlier this month. In January, Nikhil Wahi was sentenced to 10 months in prison. In pleading guilty to the criminal charges, Ishan Wahi said he did not believe any of the relevant tokens were securities.
Persons: Ishan Wahi, Nikhil Wahi, Gurbir Grewal, Nikhil, , Kanishka Singh, Chris Prentice, Hannah Lang, Bill Berkrot, Cynthia Osterman Organizations: Coinbase, Coinbase Global Inc, U.S, Securities, Exchange Commission, SEC, Thomson
SEC awards record $279 million to whistleblower
  + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com   time to read: +1 min
WASHINGTON — The nation's top securities regulator on Friday announced it had given a $279 million award through its whistleblower program — the largest in its history. The Securities and Exchange Commission said the unnamed whistleblower provided information and assistance that led to a successful enforcement action, which the agency didn't describe. The payout is well more than double the second-largest award of $114 million, issued in October 2020. Whistleblower payments are withdrawn from an investor protection fund established by Congress. Rewards can range from 10% to 30% of the money collected when sanctions exceed $1 million.
SEC issues largest ever whistleblower award of $279 million
  + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com   time to read: +1 min
May 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued its largest ever award of nearly $279 million to a whistleblower whose information helped the regulator's enforcement action, it said on Friday. The award is more than double the $114 million that it had issued in October 2020. Payments to whistleblowers are made out of an investor protection fund that was established by Congress and financed entirely through monetary sanctions paid to the SEC by securities law violators. Awards to whistleblowers can range from 10% to 30% of the money collected when the monetary sanctions exceed $1 million. Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika SyamnathOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Charlie Javice, who sold her student-aid startup Frank to JPMorgan Chase, was charged with fraud. The bank claimed Javice faked millions of customers to convince it to buy Frank for $175 million. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Javice with wire fraud affecting a financial institution, securities fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy on Tuesday. JPMorgan acquired Frank in 2021 for $175 million, but began to question the authenticity of the startup's purported 4 million users after an email marketing campaign ended in "disaster," according to the bank's lawsuit and a filing by prosecutors. Out of 400,000 emails sent to Frank users, more than 70% bounced back and only 103 were opened, the bank claimed.
New York CNN —The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday charged Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and several other celebrities with failing to disclose that they were paid to promote crypto. The celebrities agreed to pay $400,000, including fines, and return what they were paid for the promotion. For their violations, Lohan agreed to pay $30,000 in fines in addition to the $10,000 she earned for the promotion. Paul agreed to pay $75,000 in fines on top of the $25,000 he earned. “At the same time, Sun paid celebrities with millions of social media followers to tout the unregistered offerings, while specifically directing that they not disclose their compensation.”
Lindsay Lohan attends/performs during a photocall for "Speed The Plow" at Playhouse Theatre on September 30, 2014 in London, England. The Securities and Exchange Commission has unveiled fraud and unregistered securities charges against crypto founder and Grenadian diplomat Justin Sun, alongside separate violations against the celebrity backers of his Tronix and BitTorrent crypto assets, which included Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan and Soulja Boy. The unregistered offer and sale charges, on the other hand, are similar to charges the SEC has unveiled against other crypto offerings and exchanges, including Genesis, Gemini and Do Kwon's Terraform Labs. “This case demonstrates again the high risk investors face when crypto asset securities are offered and sold without proper disclosure,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Tron and his backers' alleged behavior was part of an "age-old playbook to mislead and harm investors," SEC enforcement chief Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.
[1/5] Guo Wengui (also known as Miles Kwok) holds a news conference with Steve Bannon in New York, New York, U.S., November 20, 2018. Guo, 52, was charged with 11 criminal counts including securities fraud, wire fraud and concealment of money laundering, after "lining his pockets with the money he stole," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan said in a statement. They will propose a "robust bail package," according to Tamara Giwa, a federal public defender who represented Guo at Wednesday's hearing. Bannon is not accused of wrongdoing in Guo's criminal case. It said it also seized assets purchased with proceeds from Guo's alleged fraud, including a Lamborghini Aventador, and wants Guo to forfeit the yacht.
Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon greets fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui before introducing him at a news conference on November 20, 2018 in New York. The controversial exiled Chinese billionaire businessman Guo Wengui — an associate of former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon — was arrested in New York on Wednesday for orchestrating what federal prosecutors called a more than $1 billion fraud conspiracy that duped online followers with promises of outsized investment returns. Former President Donald Trump months later pardoned Bannon in that case, shortly before Trump left the White House. IThe defendants are charged with wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering in the criminal case. Both Guo and Je face ossible sentences of up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
In a statement, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite called the charges a "groundbreaking" effort to prevent the misuse of so-called 10b5-1 trading plans. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also announced civil insider trading charges against Peizer in a parallel action. Executives can use trading plans under rule 10b5-1 as a defense against insider trading charges by planning to sell shares in advance at predetermined times. In a recent case, the SEC in September charged Cheetah Mobile Inc's (0C9y.F) CEO and its former president with insider trading in connection with a trading plan. The SEC in December voted to make changes to the insider trading programs to address concerns over abuse.
The forms were filed in the name of the shell companies, instead of Ensign Peak Advisers. Ensign Peak Advisers agreed to pay a $4 million penalty to the SEC, while the church agreed to pay $1 million, the agency said. "Since 2000, Ensign Peak received and relied upon legal counsel regarding how to comply with its reporting obligations while attempting to maintain the privacy of the portfolio. As a result, Ensign Peak established separate companies (LLCs) that each filed Forms 13F instead of a single aggregated filing. Ensign Peak and the Church have cooperated with the government over a period of time as we sought resolution," Moore added.
Instead, the firm filed forms for shell companies that obscured the church’s portfolio and misstated the firm’s control over the church’s investment decisions, the SEC said. The SEC filed charges against both the church for causing the violations as well as Ensign Peak. To settle the charges, Ensign Peak agreed to pay a $4 million fine and the LDS church agreed to pay a $1 million penalty. Members of the LDS church are expected to donate a tenth of their income to the church, a longtime practice known as tithing. In a statement Tuesday, the LDS said Ensign Peak and the church cooperated with the government to seek a resolution.
The Mormon Church and its investment adviser with pay millions to settle charges with the SEC. The regulator says the Church's investment manager "went to great lengths" to avoid disclosures. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' has a $100 billion investment portfolio, according to a 13F form. Roger Clarke, the head of Ensign Peak, told the Wall Street Journal that the fund was an emergency account to be used in difficult times. Ensign Peak and the Church have cooperated with the government over a period of time as we sought resolution."
The markets watchdog said the church and its nonprofit investment company, Ensign Peak Advisers Inc, used shell companies to mask its growing investments in public companies, which reached $32 billion in 2018, due to concerns of negative publicity. The use of shell companies came to light in 2019, when a former employee of Ensign Peak filed a whistleblower complaint. From 1997 through 2019, those shell companies filed the mandatory forms detailing the investments and improperly claimed to operate independently. In reality, the investments were still controlled by Ensign Peak, and the church was aware of the arrangement with church employees heading most of the companies, according to the SEC. The church agreed to pay $1 million, while Ensign Peak will pay $4 million to settle charges.
The SEC has charged fugitive crypto boss Do Kwon and his company Terraform Labs with alleged fraud. The suit is linked to the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD which led to a $60 billion wipeout last year. Terraform was "simply a fraud propped up by a so-called algorithmic 'stablecoin'," the SEC alleges. The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused them of misleading US investors about the stability of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD, or UST, which was meant to be pegged to the US dollar. At the same time, the SEC is also charging Terraform and Kwon over the sale of unregistered securities, the markets regulator said.
Do Kwon, co-founder and chief executive officer of Terraform Labs, insists that he is not on the run from South Korean authorities. Terraform Labs, the company that Kwon founded, is behind the collapsed cryptocurrencies terraUSD and luna, which combined were worth $60 billion before they crashed. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Terraform Labs and its CEO, Do Kwon, with fraud, alleging that they orchestrated a multibillion dollar "crypto asset securities fraud," the SEC said Thursday. The SEC alleges that Kwon marketed those assets, including those mAsset swaps and Terra, as profit-bearing securities, "repeatedly claiming" the tokens would increase in value. Kwon is wanted in South Korea for his involvement in the collapse of TerraUSD.
That practice, known as “staking,” reflected an unregistered offer and sale of securities, the SEC alleged in a complaint announced Thursday. According to the SEC, Kraken failed to adequately disclose the risks of participating in the program, which had advertised annual yields of as much as 21%. But according to cryptocurrency advocates, the SEC clampdown on staking could have wider effects that undermine the US cryptocurrency ecosystem. The SEC complaint zeroes in on a practice that the industry says is vital to supporting the healthy function of some virtual currencies. In its complaint, however, the SEC alleged Kraken failed to notify users about the lack of protections it offered to those who engaged in staking through Kraken’s program.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican of North Carolina and ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, D.C.Top House Republicans on Friday sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission as Congress scrutinizes the agency's actions against Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried was scheduled to testify before the committee on Dec. 13, a day after he was arrested by Bahamian officials. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried stepped down as its CEO in November. The committee's request comes a week after McHenry announced the panel will examine certain so-called overreaches by financial oversight agencies. The Financial Services Committee requested communications between the SEC's enforcement division, specifically its director, Gurbir Grewal; communications among Gensler's direct staff and records and communications between SEC and the Justice Department over the last few months by 5 p.m. on Feb. 23.
Hester Peirce, commissioner of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), speaks during the DC Blockchain Summit in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, May 24, 2022. Hester Peirce of the Securities and Exchange Commission publicly rebuked her agency's apparent crypto regulation by enforcement, asking if a "hostile" regulator is the best solution for the industry. "Whether one agrees with that analysis or not, a more fundamental question is whether SEC registration would have been possible," Peirce wrote. But Gensler and the SEC Enforcement division under his control have moved far more aggressively than the Department of Justice or policymakers to tamp down on the crypto industry. Peirce, who dissented on the enforcement action, indirectly disputed the premise of that assertion.
Former McDonald's CEO Stephen Easterbrook unveiling the company's new corporate headquarters during a grand opening ceremony on June 4, 2018, in ChicagoThe Securities and Exchange Commission charged former McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook on Monday with misrepresenting his November 2019 firing. McDonald's board fired Easterbrook in 2019 for a consensual relationship with an employee, which violated the company's fraternization policy. In December 2021, the two parties settled the lawsuit, and McDonald's successfully clawed back Easterbrook's severance, valued at $105 million. McDonald's has not admitted or denied the SEC's findings. In a statement, the company said that the SEC's actions reinforce what it has previously said about its handling of Easterbrook's misconduct.
The SEC accused the former McDonald's CEO of being untruthful in the chain's internal investigation. McDonald's fired Stephen Easterbrook in 2019 over an employee relationship, then discovered more. During that investigation, Easterbook told lawyers brought in by McDonald's board that he hadn't had any other sexual relationships with McDonald's employees besides the one he was being questioned over at the time. "In July 2020, McDonald's learned that Easterbrook had in fact engaged in other relationships with McDonald's employees in violation of the company's Standards of Business Conduct." In August 2020, McDonald's sued Easterbrook "to recover compensation and severance benefits," alleging he concealed evidence and lied about having other relationships with subordinates.
New York CNN —Disgraced former McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook will pay $400,000 to settle charges that he allegedly misled investors about the circumstances of his 2019 firing following a relationship with an employee. McDonald’s later filed a lawsuit against Easterbrook that ended with the ex-CEO paying back his $105 million severance payment, but the SEC charged both the executive and the company for making such a deal in the first place. In addition to the $400,000 civil penalty, Easterbrook is also banned from serving as a director or officer at any company that reports to the SEC. In August 2020, McDonald’s filed a lawsuit claiming Easterbrook lied to the board about the extent of his relationships with employees. Steve Easterbrook, former CEO of McDonald's Corp. Brendan McDermid/ReutersMcDonald’s settled the lawsuit with Easterbrook in 2021, forcing him to repay his severance package of $105 million.
New York CNN —FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was indicted on eight criminal charges including wire fraud and conspiracy by misusing customer funds, according to an indictment from the US Attorney of the Southern District of New York. Separately Tuesday, US markets regulators charged Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors and customers in his failed crypto exchange FTX. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Bankman-Fried, “orchestrated a years-long fraud” to conceal from FTX investors the diversion of customer funds to Alameda Research, his crypto-trading hedge fund. Star athletes and celebrities who backed FTX also reportedly received a stake in the company, including Tom Brady and Gisele. That meant there was no meaningful distinction between FTX customer funds and Alameda’s funds that Bankman-Fried used as his “personal piggy bank,” the complaint says.
The SEC has accused FTX of being a "house of cards" built on a "foundation of deception," in a statement. The SEC released charges on Tuesday morning, accusing Bankman-Fried of a "years-long" fraud. In its complaint, the SEC announced it had charged the FTX cofounder, Sam Bankman-Fried, with "orchestrating a scheme to defraud" FTX investors. SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in the statement: "We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto." The director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, Gurbir S. Grewal, accused FTX of operating "behind a veneer of legitimacy" that was created by Bankman-Fried, per the Tuesday press release.
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