SEC Hits Pharma CIO with $8 Million Insider Trading Case

SEC Charges Pharmaceutical Co. Chief Information Officer in $8 Million Insider Trading Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced insider trading charges against Ramkumar Rayapureddy, Chief Information Officer of pharmaceutical company Viatris Inc., which was formerly known as Mylan N.V.

The SEC’s complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, alleges that, from at least September 2017 through July 2019, Rayapureddy, a resident of Pennsylvania, tipped his friend and former colleague, Dayakar Mallu, material nonpublic information about Mylan’s unannounced drug approval by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, financial results, and an impending merger with a division of Pfizer Inc. The complaint further alleges that Mallu generated gains totaling nearly $8 million and avoided losses by trading Mylan securities based upon Rayapureddy’s tips and shared a portion of his profits with Rayapureddy through cash payments in India. The SEC previously charged Mallu in connection with this investigation.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Net Worth Goes From $16 Billion to Zero After FTX Collapse

The entire $16 billion fortune of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried has now been wiped out, one of history’s greatest-ever destructions of wealth.

The downfall of his crypto exchange and its trading house, Alameda Research, means assets owned by the mogul once likened to John Pierpont Morgan have become worthless. At the peak, the 30-year-old was worth $26 billion, and he was still worth almost $16 billion at the start of the week.

SEC Wins Motion for Summary Judgement In SEC v. LBRY

Finally, the court dispensed with LBRY’s argument that it had been deprived of “fair notice” that its offerings were subject to the securities laws. In rejecting LBRY’s contention that the SEC’s suit constituted a “substantial change in its enforcement policy that was not reasonably communicated to the public” because LBRY did not conduct an ICO, the court held that the SEC’s theory fit comfortably within the bounds of prior caselaw, and noted that LBRY had no basis to assert it was unaware of Howey’s guidelines, even if it sold LBC tokens in a non-ICO context. At the end of the opinion, the court made a critical statement: “The SEC has not based its enforcement action here on a novel interpretation of a rule that by its terms does not expressly prohibit the relevant conduct. Instead, the SEC has based its claim on a straightforward application of a venerable Supreme Court precedent that has been applied by hundreds of federal courts across the country over more than 70 years.” Thus, according to the court, even if this was the first time the SEC had brought an action against an issuer of digital tokens that did not conduct an ICO, “LBRY is in no position to claim that it did not receive fair notice that its conduct was unlawful.” Thus, the court essentially adopted the rationale SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has espoused publicly, including before Congress, that token issuers should know whether they satisfy the Howey test (and that most do). Many issuers, however, may beg to differ.

After Binance deal fails, FTX cryptocurrency investors’ money in limbo

Since 1990, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan has managed hundreds of billions of dollars in assets for nearly 200,000 education workers, holding stakes in traditional investments from airports to shopping centers.

But on Thursday the Canadian pension fund warned in a statement it had suffered a hit from a more alternative gamble: The fund had sunk as much as $75 million into FTX International, the troubled global cryptocurrency exchange, in a financing round last year.

The Canadian pension fund is just one of many entities affected by the unraveling of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried, its onetime highflying chief executive, who in just a few chaotic days has seen his fortunes dramatically turn. Celebrity endorsers, venture-capital firms and everyday investors are all facing uncertainty in the aftermath.

Citigroup, funds in talks to end lawsuit over errant $500 mln Revlon payment

Citigroup Inc is in talks to end litigation against hedge funds and investment firms that it mistakenly paid about $500 million on a loan owed by Revlon Inc (REVRQ.PK), billionaire Ronald Perelman’s now-bankrupt cosmetics company.

Both sides had been expected to apprise U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan on their next steps in the case by Nov. 10.

In a letter filed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court, their lawyers requested a three-week extension to Dec. 1 to “allow the parties to continue discussions that would avoid the need for further court involvement.”

‘Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste’: CFTC Commissioner Calls on Congress to Act After FTX Debacle

“There is a regulatory gap that really limits our ability,” Johnson said, and thus Congress needs to act to clear the fog on crypto regulation. FTX being on the verge of collapse gives Congress plenty of reasons to act, and is a prime example of “never letting a good crisis go to waste,” she said.

Had the CFTC regulated FTX, Johnson added, its outcome might’ve likely looked different.

“If FTX had been a regulated entity under our regulatory umbrella, customer bonds would’ve been protected, there would’ve been liquidity reserve requirements in place [and] there would’ve been monitoring and surveillance that is not immediately available,” she pointed out.

Top FTX Lawyer Orders Documents Preserved as Investigations Ramp Up

The top lawyer at FTX US has instructed all FTX employees to preserve their work-related documents, the latest sign of possible legal exposure for Sam Bankman-Fried’s troubled crypto empire.

On Wednesday, FTX US General Counsel Ryne Miller ordered all staff to retain their emails, messages, notes and documents stemming from their work at FTX, FTX US, Alameda and affiliated companies, according to people with direct knowledge. He called the chain of events of the last few days “disappointing developments” in a company-wide message, the people said.