SEC Charges Privately Held Company with Violating Whistleblower Protection Rules

SEC Charges Privately Held Monolith Resources for Using Separation Agreements that Violated Whistleblower Protection Rules

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against Monolith Resources LLC, a privately held energy and technology company headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, for using employee separation agreements that violated the SEC’s whistleblower protection rules.

According to the SEC’s order, from February 2020 until early March 2023, Monolith used separation agreements that required certain departing employees to waive their rights to monetary whistleblower awards in connection with filing claims with or participating in investigations by government agencies. The SEC’s order finds that Monolith’s separation agreements raised impediments to participation in the SEC’s whistleblower program by having employees forego important financial incentives that are intended to encourage people to communicate directly with SEC staff about possible securities law violations.

Coinbase CEO: SEC leadership has ‘very hostile’ view of crypto regulation

In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Coinbase Global CEO Brian Armstrong says his company has “good relationships” with SEC staff, but that “leadership there has taken a very hostile view towards crypto…regulation by enforcement posture instead of just engaging in rule making as they’re required to by law.” Armstrong believes ultimately the issues facing the company will be resolved. He also says it “would certainly help” the company someone other than Gary Gensler were leading the SEC. Despite the regulatory hurdles, Armstrong says Coinbase will stay in the U.S., but “we do look at everywhere around the world and we look for regulatory clarity, and that helps us prioritize our investments.” That being said, Armtrong says “Coinbase is gonna be a U.S. company with a multi-national reach.”

Law firm Kirton McConkie sued over advice ex-client says led to SEC probe

A Louisiana investment company has sued Utah law firm Kirton McConkie and one of its partners over claims that the company relied on the lawyer’s opinion letters to sell stock but wound up the target of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission complaint after the sale.

In the lawsuit filed on Thursday in Louisiana federal court, Western Bankers Capital says it hired Kirton McConkie partner Charles Parkinson Lloyd in 2017 to assist in its sale of 26 million shares of Wyoming company Dolat Ventures. Lloyd, who the lawsuit alleges was tasked with determining whether the sale of the shares could be compliant with SEC rules, authored letters that Western Bankers said it relied on to make the transaction.

U.S. SEC Counters Ripple in Ongoing Effort to Appeal Groundbreaking XRP Ruling

Whether or not Ripple violated securities law in making XRP available to retail investors by putting it on crypto exchanges is absolutely a question that needs appeals court intervention, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) argued Friday.

The SEC filed a response to a Ripple memo which argued the opposite as part of its ongoing case against the crypto company closely affiliated with the XRP cryptocurrency. While Ripple argued last week that the SEC hadn’t made a sufficient argument to warrant an appeal, Friday’s filing pushed back forcefully.

“The Defendants themselves say that the issues have industry-wide significance and are of special consequence,” the filing said.

Wells Fargo $1 Billion Settlement Over Fake Accounts Is Approved

Wells Fargo & Co.’s $1 billion settlement of a shareholder lawsuit over unauthorized customer accounts was approved by a federal judge, bringing the total amount the bank has agreed to pay to resolve claims over the scandal to nearly $5 billion.

US District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon authorized the agreement following a hearing in New York Friday, more than three months after the deal was reached, lawyers for investors said in a statement. The approval couldn’t be immediately confirmed in court records.

FTX Probing If Millions In Payments to Shaq, Naomi Osaka Can Be Reversed

FTX Group advisers have scrutinized whether they can claw back millions of dollars paid to Shaquille O’Neal, tennis star Naomi Osaka and other professional athletes and teams that promoted Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto platform before its collapse.

Financial advisers hired by FTX disclosed in court papers that they’ve analyzed if certain payments dished out to athletes before the company unraveled last November can be recovered in Chapter 11. Advisers have reviewed payments to O’Neal, Osaka and others to determine if the transfers are subject to rules that permit companies to reverse transactions that occurred just before a Chapter 11 filing, according to court documents.

The Bitcoin ETF Trade Is Increasingly About Bitcoin Itself

One question is whether the SEC could approve some spot bitcoin ETF applications such as the one by BlackRock, but ask Grayscale to modify its application in a way to match those, such as by adopting a so-called surveillance-sharing agreement with a spot bitcoin exchange such as the one run by Coinbase Global.

Grayscale, in a letter to the SEC, anticipated this possibility, arguing that the reasoning of the court already shows that the surveillance of the futures market provided by the CME Group for bitcoin futures ETFs—which the SEC has approved—is sufficient. The court noted that Grayscale had given evidence that the correlation between spot, or the direct bitcoin market, and bitcoin futures, is 99.9%.

CFTC Cracks Down on DeFi Firms Over Crypto Derivatives Trading

Three decentralized finance companies agreed to settle charges filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that they illegally offered derivatives trading in cryptocurrency, the agency said Thursday.

The CFTC said the companies, Opyn and ZeroEx, both based in California, and North Carolina-based Deridex, illegally offered leveraged and margined retail commodities transactions in cryptocurrency. Deridex and Opyn were also charged with failing to register with the CFTC for digital asset derivatives trading and to have know-your-customer programs in compliance with money-laundering laws.

The CFTC categorized the three companies as DeFi protocols, which are blockchain-based software protocols and smart contracts that work essentially as trading platforms and supposedly offer users the ability to transact outside the regulated financial system.