SEC Enforcement Defense
The firm serves public and private companies, officers and directors, broker-dealers, investment advisers, hedge funds, private equity and venture capital funds, as well as municipal securities issuers, underwriters and advisers. In an article titled SEC Tightens Policing of Municipal Debt Market,” Joseph Dever, a member of Cozen SEC Enforcement DC 'Connor's Commercial Litigation Department, discusses the Securities and Exchange Commission's oversight of the municipal debt market and its new initiative that encourages municipalities as well as their bankers to come forward with instances in which they included misleading information in their bond-offering documents.
In October, 2018, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a final judgment against Christopher St. Lawrence, the former Supervisor of the Town of Ramapo, New York (the Town”) and Director of Finance and President of the Ramapo Local Development Corporation (RLDC”), enjoining him from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and permanently barring him from participating in any offering of municipal securities.
From 1995 to 2001, he managed the defense of high profile tobacco lawsuits brought by 50 state Attorneys General and a multi-billion dollar lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice, and oversaw the defense of thousands of individual claims, in addition to the company's preventive litigation efforts.
Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Diego Rodriguez, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI”), and Philip R. Bartlett, Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS”), announced today that ROBERT A. OLINS was arrested this morning on conspiracy, obstruction, and bank fraud charges stemming from his scheme to hide assets from a receiver (the Receiver”) appointed by U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to oversee the liquidation of OLINS's art and antiques collection (the Art and Antiques Collection”) to satisfy a $3.3 million disgorgement judgment entered in connection with an enforcement proceeding by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC”).
We've achieved extraordinary success protecting clients from a broad range of investigations and enforcement actions initiated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Justice, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, state attorneys general, and other regulators and agencies.
While at the SEC, he worked on matters involving disclosure failures by public companies; alleged fraud and regulatory violations by investment advisers and broker-dealers; insider trading; anti-money laundering violations; "spoofing" and other forms of market manipulation; failure-to-supervise violations; the adequacy of firms' cyber security procedures and protections; and a variety of other fraud and regulatory matters.
While at the SEC, he worked on matters involving disclosure failures by public companies; alleged fraud and regulatory violations by investment advisers and broker-dealers; insider trading; anti-money laundering violations; spoofing” and other forms of market manipulation; failure-to-supervise violations; the adequacy of firms' cyber security procedures and protections; and a variety of other fraud and regulatory matters.
He also gained extensive experience working with international enforcement officials as well as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the New York State Attorney General's Office, FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), the New York Stock Exchange and other domestic agencies.
From January 2012 through June 2014, Lorin served as Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where he supervised the investigation and prosecution of federal crimes by a team of more than 160 Assistant U.S. Attorneys.
He led the defense of clients in many of the recent headline investigations of the financial industry, including investigations of a wide variety of accounting practices; revenue-sharing and market-timing practices of mutual funds; soft-dollar and directed brokerage practices of investment advisors and broker-dealers; specialist trading on the New York Stock Exchange; revenue-sharing practices of insurance carriers and brokers; the promotion of tax shelters and strategies by securities and accounting firms, and trading and financial transactions implicating US sanctions laws.
Following an SEC Wells Submission, obtained closing letter” declining to bring charges against senior executive of financial services firm, which had settled an administrative proceeding relating to mutual fund share class recommendations, Matter of SunTrust Investment Services, Inc., 2017 WL 4064192 (Sept.
According to Nicolas Morgan, a former lawyer for the U.S. government agency tasked with regulating the securities industry, the SEC is likely to roll out a sort of assembly line” of enforcement actions against the nascent industry in the coming years.