DOJ Sets "25 Open Matters" Quota for AUSAs

Plus an ethics provision for senior government officials continues to stall passage of Clarity Act.

Bruce Carton
July 14, 2026

People

Akinyemi Akiwowo has been named Head of Dallas Legal and Compliance at Morgan Stanley.

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DOJ Sets Case Quotas for Line Prosecutors in Push to Boost Stats

Justice Department leaders have started requiring all prosecutors to maintain at least 25 open cases, tightening the Trump administration’s grip on operational decisions previously left to US attorneys.

The deputy attorney general’s office communicated the “25 open matters” threshold to all 93 US attorneys in recent weeks, with an emphasis on driving up public safety and fraud statistics, said four people familiar with the shift. A formal policy change is still under development, they said.

DOJ leaders in Washington have started searching for disengaged prosecutors by monitoring the department’s case management database, although an enforcement mechanism hasn’t been announced, the individuals added. It comes as political appointees have increasingly tried to dispel criticism over personnel departures by presenting numbers purporting to prove DOJ is doing more with less.

by Bloomberg Law

👉 A DOJ spokesman is quoted in the article as stating, "[t]his is the bare minimum and that quantity in and of itself is embarrassingly low. The expectation is much higher. Hundreds of AUSAs around the country routinely juggle 100+ open matters.”

Trump's crypto riches loom over Clarity Act talks to ban conflicts for U.S. officials

President Donald Trump's disclosure that the crypto sector had increased his wealth by some $1.4 billion is looming heavily over the ongoing discussions about satisfying Democratic lawmakers' demands that the crypto market structure bill include restrictions on such industry involvement for senior government officials.

In a briefing of U.S. Senate Democrats' offices on that provision, ethics and anti-corruption advocates rounded up by Senator Chris Murphy suggested last week that Trump needed to be prevented from further profit from the industry his administration is regulating, according to a person familiar with the discussion. The case was made that the ethics section of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act needed to extend to officials' familiar members and include bans on ownership and rules on disclosure.

The ethics provision is among the final sections of the Clarity Act that need to be ironed out if the bill is to advance to a Senate floor vote....

by CoinDesk

A securities class action filed against ZoomInfo Technologies, Inc. and certain of its directors and officers on June 25, 2026, highlights what may be the next phase of AI-related securities litigation. Unlike many earlier AI-related lawsuits, which alleged that companies overstated their AI capabilities, the Zoom complaint alleges that the company accurately described its AI initiatives but failed to disclose that AI was simultaneously disrupting its legacy business model.

If this theory gains traction, it could represent another evolution in AI-related securities litigation: from alleged AI washing to alleged underdisclosure of AI-related business risks.

by The D & O Diary

SEC Files Settled Action as to an Electric Vehicle Company and Its CEO for Allegedly Misleading Investors

On July 10, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a settled action alleging that Battle Motors, Inc., an Ohio-based manufacturer of electric (BEV) and gas-powered vehicles, and Michael W. Patterson, Battle’s CEO and Chairman, made misleading statements portraying Battle as being more successful than it actually was in connection with a convertible debt offering that raised $112.5 million from two outside investors.

According to the SEC’s complaint, filed in the United States District Court for Northern District of Ohio, Battle and Patterson misrepresented to investors that Battle had received 115 electric vehicle purchase orders totaling $30 million in only three months. The complaint further alleges that, in reality, however, at the time of these statements, Battle only had purchase orders for eight of the vehicles, amounting to approximately $2 million in actual sales; the rest of the projections were based on mere expressions of customer interest. The complaint further alleges that Battle and Patterson represented that Battle’s dealer network comprised 180 dealers with 320 locations. At the time of these statements, however, Battle allegedly had a dealer network consisting of only 47 dealers with 156 locations.

by SEC Litigation Release

👉 The SEC Complaint is here.

Trump invested crypto gains in stocks and bonds, filings show

President Donald Trump’s financial disclosures show that even as he and his two eldest sons were encouraging investors to plow their money into crypto projects — which resulted in steep losses for retail buyers — his money managers were investing a significant portion of the proceeds into safer harbors.

Trump received more than $1.4 billion last year from his family’s crypto projects, including World Liberty ‌Financial and the Trump meme coin, his latest financial disclosures filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics show.

A Reuters analysis of his holdings over the past two years shows that his portfolios of stocks and bonds increased at least fourfold as the crypto money flooded in. The president held between $703 million and $2.6 billion in such traditional financial instruments at the end of 2025, compared with between $225 million and $608 million at the end of 2024.

The filings report holdings with ranges instead of exact figures. Reuters was unable to determine exactly how the money he reported earning from crypto was allocated to less risky assets.

While Trump has held on to some of his crypto proceeds, nine digital asset experts who reviewed the Reuters analysis said the Republican president’s filings show the personal economic activity of a ⁠man who does not trust crypto as a primary store of his personal wealth. In addition to the meme coin and World Liberty, Trump did not report having bought shares in two publicly listed crypto firms that are backed by his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

by Reuters: Business

Private-Equity Firms Are Sitting on a Nine-Year Backlog

The private-equity industry’s next decade could be a slog.

Buyout firms face a backlog of unsold portfolio companies that is only worsening as investor concerns deepen about artificial intelligence’s impact on the software industry. The firms are expected to take about nine years to clear their logjam at the current pace, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis of PitchBook data released last month.

About 13,500 U.S. companies sat in private-equity portfolios as of June 30, up from roughly 13,300 at the end of 2025, PitchBook data released Tuesday show. Almost 4,000 companies have been held for six or more years. About 1,500 companies have been held for nine or more years.

by WSJ

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