On November 3, 2015, an Illinois federal jury convicted Michael Coscia, a high-frequency commodities trader, of six counts of commodities fraud and six counts of spoofing—entering a buy or sell order with the intent to cancel before the order’s execution.1 Coscia’s conviction was the first under the criminal anti-spoofing provisions…
On December 1, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged GAW Miners, LLC (“GAW Miners”), ZenMiner, LLC (“ZenMiner”) and Homero Joshua Garza (“Garza”) the managing member of both GAW Miners and ZenMiner (together the, “Defendants”) with fraud under (i) Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange…
On September 22, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) charged private equity fund adviser, Lincolnshire Management, Inc. (“Lincolnshire”), with misallocating expenses shared between two portfolio companies. Lincolnshire integrated two portfolio companies that were each owned by a different Lincolnshire private equity fund. Lincolnshire owed a fiduciary duty to…
Written by: Jay B. Gould On December 12, 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged a London-based hedge fund adviser and its former U.S.-based holding company with internal controls failures that led to the overvaluation of a fund’s assets and inflated fee revenue for the firms. The investigation came…
Written by: Jay B. Gould On September 17, 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced enforcement actions against 23 firms for short selling violations as the agency increases its focus on preventing firms from improperly participating in public stock offerings after selling short those same stocks. The enforcement actions…
Written by: G. Derek Andreson The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) is poised to modify its “no-admit, no-deny” policy to seek more admissions of wrongdoing from defendants as a condition of settlement in enforcement cases. The change comes on the heels of recent criticism of the policy from two…