SEC Charges Express, Inc. With Failing to Disclose Compensation Paid to Former CEO.

SEC Charges Express, Inc. with Failing to Disclose Nearly $1 Million in Perks Provided to Former CEO

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against Ohio-based Express, Inc., a multi-brand American fashion retailer, for failing to disclose executive compensation it paid to its now former CEO.

According to the SEC’s order, in definitive proxy statements for fiscal years 2019, 2020, and 2021, Express failed to disclose $979,269 worth of perks and personal benefits provided to its CEO, including certain expenses associated with the CEO’s authorized use of chartered aircraft for personal purposes. As a result, the company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year, understated the “All Other Compensation” portion of its CEO’s compensation by an average of 94 percent over the three fiscal years.

Blue State AGs Prepare to Use Loper Bright Ruling to Defend ESG

The top law enforcement officers for blue states are planning to turn conservatives’ own legal arguments against them to defend environmental, social, and governance principles during the Trump-Vance administration.

The blue state AGs are ready to use the Supreme Court’s June Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision as a line of attack if the Trump administration issues anti-ESG edicts that aren’t prescribed by Congress, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said. The high court’s ruling made it easier to fight some agency regulations in court by striking down the so-called Chevron doctrine that had required judges to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous laws.

What Will Paul Atkins Do with the SEC’s Formal Order Authority?

After Donald Trump’s first election, in early 2017 the Commission under Acting Chair Michael Piwowar cut the delegation back, but not all the way. For the next four years formal order authority was limited to the Enforcement Director and not the 20 or so Associate Directors. In 2021, Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee restored it to the Associate Directors.

What Now?

I’ll tell you somebody else who almost certainly hates this delegation: Paul Atkins. He left the SEC in 2008, so he didn’t get a chance to vote on that policy. I can’t find examples of his comments on it online, but look at that Fordham article. Does it suggest someone who wouldn’t take advantage of opportunities to question the staff’s need for a formal order? Everything about it cuts toward paring back the staff’s power, not expanding it. Also, Atkins’s former counsel Marc Uyeda is a current Commissioner and made a speech last year partly addressing the staff’s subpoena authority. In it, he noted that the Morton Salt standard “is a low threshold and, thus, the protection against potential abuse is largely left to the discretion and judgment of the investigating agency.” Who do you think Atkins trusts to protect against that potential abuse? I would bet $10 that Chair Atkins will want to take that discretion and judgment all the way back from Enforcement’s senior staff and hold it for the Commissioners themselves. I’d be pretty surprised if he doesn’t.

Next U.S. Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott Calls Crypto ‘Next Wonder’ of World

The incoming Republican chair of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, Senator Tim Scott, and his counterpart on the House Financial Services Committee, Representative French Hill, were welcomed with enthusiasm by a Blockchain Association crowd in Washington, in sharp contrast to the uncertain tone of the same event last year. The two lawmakers said at the policy event that both chambers of Congress and the administration of President-elect Donald Trump will all be pulling in the same direction to make legislation happen.

The two starting points, they said, will be the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) — the bill to establish comprehensive crypto market guardrails that cleared the House this year by a wide bipartisan margin — and a stablecoin bill that was close to a bipartisan deal but ground to a halt over a few sticking points around the role of the federal and state governments.

Musk Ruling Takes Aim at Lawyer Windfalls in Moonshot Pay Cases

The judge who killed Elon Musk’s $56 billion compensation deal handed his courtroom foes a fraction of the legal fees they sought for their success, underscoring a broader reckoning with “eye-popping” attorney paydays.

Facing a torrent of vitriol from the world’s richest man and his fans, the chief judge of Delaware’s elite business court rejected a request for billions, calling it a “bold ask” in a case about excessive pay. She slashed the fee amount to $345 million by an unusual method: pegging it to the package’s $2.3 billion value when it was awarded, in 2018, rather than when she struck it down in January.

Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick said she was looking to solve “the windfall problem.” As Delaware’s Chancery Court increasingly confronts blockbuster cases targeting tech titans, the decision reflects the tightrope its judges are walking to weigh ordinary litigation incentives against the destabilizing impact of astronomical legal payouts.

Beverage Company Hit with COVID-Related Securities Suit

Even though we are now well into the fifth year since the initial coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. in March 2020, the coronavirus-related securities class action lawsuits continue to be filed. According to the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Litigation Clearinghouse website (here), there have been a total of 16 COVID-related securities suits filed in 2024 (inclusive of this latest lawsuit against MGPI), representing about 7% of all securities class action litigation filings in 2024. According to the Stanford Clearinghouse website, there have been a total of 81 COVID-related securities suit filings (inclusive of the new MGPI lawsuit).

It is interesting not only that these suits continue to be filed but also that their influx has continued pretty steadily. Thus, of the 16 COVID-related securities suits filed in 2024, seven have been filed in the second half of the year. If there is any drop off in activity, it has been very slight, at best.

Biden says he supports a congressional stock trading ban

President Joe Biden said in an interview published in part Tuesday that he is in favor of a ban on stock trading by members of Congress, taking a position on an issue that has been the subject of discussion and proposed legislation in recent years.

Speaking with Faiz Shakir, an adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in an interview on the progressive nonprofit news site More Perfect Union, Biden said he did not know how lawmakers could trade stocks in good conscience while representing their states or districts.