"Pay to the Order of WHISTLEBLOWER in the Amount of $279 Million Dollars"

SEC Issues Largest-Ever Whistleblower Award

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the largest-ever award, nearly $279 million, to a whistleblower whose information and assistance led to the successful enforcement of SEC and related actions. This is the highest award in the SEC’s whistleblower program’s history, more than doubling the $114 million whistleblower award the SEC issued in October 2020.

“The size of today’s award – the highest in our program’s history – not only incentivizes whistleblowers to come forward with accurate information about potential securities law violations, but also reflects the tremendous success of our whistleblower program,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “This success directly benefits investors, as whistleblower tips have contributed to enforcement actions resulting in orders requiring bad actors to disgorge more than $4 billion in ill-gotten gains and interest. As this award shows, there is a significant incentive for whistleblowers to come forward with accurate information about potential securities law violations.”

Elizabeth Holmes Opens Up About Her Theranos Trial and What Comes Next

Ms. Holmes has not spoken to the media since 2016, when her legal team advised she go quiet. And, as the adage goes, if you don’t feed the press, we feed on you. In Elizabeth Holmes, we found an all-you-can-eat buffet. It had everything: The black turtlenecks, the Kabuki red lipstick, the green juices, the dancing to Lil Wayne. Somewhere along the way, Ms. Holmes says that the person (whoever that is) got lost. At one point, I tell her that I heard Jennifer Lawrence had pulled out of portraying her in a movie. She replied, almost reflectively, “They’re not playing me. They’re playing a character I created.

So, why did she create that public persona? “I believed it would be how I would be good at business and taken seriously and not taken as a little girl or a girl who didn’t have good technical ideas,” said Ms. Holmes, who founded Theranos at 19. “Maybe people picked up on that not being authentic, since it wasn’t.”

Binance faces US probe of possible Russian sanctions violations

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether Binance Holdings was illegally used to let Russians skirt U.S. sanctions and move money through the cryptocurrency exchange, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Regulators globally have long called for tighter controls on crypto exchanges including Binance, the world’s largest, to prevent illegal activities – from money laundering to the financing of terrorism.

First Republic Bank Executive Trading Investigated by SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the conduct of First Republic Bank executives before the government seizure and sale of the lender to JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to two people familiar with the matter.

The SEC is looking into whether any members of the then-executive team of First Republic improperly traded on inside information, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the probe hasn’t been publicly disclosed.

Crypto-silence is precious for Gensler’s SEC

Think from Gensler’s perspective, though, and there’s little upside in breaking the silence. Accept that digital assets are not securities after all, and he would look foolish for not saying so sooner. Yet state definitively that they are securities, and Gensler would have to show his reasoning, opening the SEC up to more costly legal battles that it could lose.

Meanwhile, with no firm decision either way, the agency can keep firing off enforcement actions, which will continue to provoke howls of inconsistent behavior. Complain as they may, Gensler’s foes may just have to accept that sometimes, no answer is an answer.

Coinbase CEO says SEC is on ‘lone crusade,’ dials back on suggestion exchange may relocate

“The SEC is a bit of an outlier here,” Armstrong told CNBC’s Dan Murphy in an interview in Dubai Monday. “There’s kind of a lone crusade, if you will, with Gary Gensler, the chair there, and he has taken a more anti-crypto view for some reason.”

“I don’t think he’s necessarily trying to regulate the industry as much as maybe curtail it. But he’s created some lawsuits, and I think it’s quite unhelpful for the industry in the U.S. writ large, but it also is an opportunity for Coinbase to go get that clarity from the courts that we feel will really benefit the crypto industry and also the U.S. more broadly.”

SEC Obtains Judgment Against Former CEO and General Counsel Who Raised Millions of Dollars from Investors Through False Statements

On May 3, 2023, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut entered a final judgment against former Connecticut resident Ronald D. Swanson ordering him to pay over $927,000 in disgorgement and penalties in a securities offering fraud action previously filed by the SEC in May 2020. The Court also ordered Swanson barred from serving as the officer or director of a publicly-traded company for a period of 10 years.

The SEC’s complaint alleged that Swanson fraudulently raised more than $2 million from investors between October 2012 and August 2015 by making false and misleading statements about Texas-based liquid purification technology company Sonic Cavitation, Inc. The complaint alleged that while serving as the chief executive officer and general counsel of Sonic Cavitation, Swanson made multiple false claims exaggerating the interest level of Sonic Cavitation’s potential business partners and the capabilities of its technology, and minimizing the risk level of its investment offerings.