SEC Prevails in Seven-Day Jury Trial of Cutter Financial and its Founder

Statement on Jury’s Verdict in Trial of Cutter Financial Group LLC and Jeffrey Cutter

Yesterday, after a seven day trial and just over 5 hours of deliberation, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts found investment adviser Jeffrey Cutter and his advisory firm, Cutter Financial Group, LLC, liable for violating Section 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, which prohibits “engag[ing] in any transaction, practice, or course of business which operates as a fraud or deceit upon any client or prospective client.” The jury found for the defendants on claims the SEC alleged under Sections 206(1) and (4) of the Act. The jury found that Cutter and his firm, who marketed his services to current and future retirees, failed to disclose to their clients significant upfront commissions, among other conflicts of interest.

Trump Offers a Private Dinner to Top 220 Investors in His Memecoin

The flashy online announcement called it “the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World,” a chance to have “an intimate private dinner” with President Trump at his members-only golf club in Virginia, followed by a tour of the White House.

A seat would be reserved for each of the top 220 investors in $TRUMP, a cryptocurrency that Mr. Trump launched on the eve of his inauguration.

In an astonishing escalation of the Trump family’s efforts to profit from crypto, a website promoting $TRUMP, the president’s so-called memecoin, announced on Wednesday that the coin’s largest buyers would be invited to meet him. The effort was, in effect, an offer of access to the White House in exchange for an investment in one of Mr. Trump’s crypto ventures.

“Have Dinner with President Trump and the $TRUMP Community!” the invitation said. “Let the President know how many $TRUMP coins YOU own!”

SEC Keeps Eye on WhatsApp, Signal Usage Despite Trump Changes

Wall Street’s widespread use of electronic communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage prompted an SEC sweep of regulated firms’ recordkeeping and surveillance under the past administration, but the regulator is unlikely to abandon the crackdown even as other priorities shift.

In one of his final moves as acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mark Uyeda last week rebuffed 16 financial firms’ bid to trim record-keeping settlements inked with ex-Chair Gary Gensler. Chairman Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump’s full-time pick to lead the agency, was sworn in April 21. […]

Trump’s SEC sent a clear message to the industry by standing firm on some settlements from the Gensler-era probe, signaling that off-channel communications may be a shared priority among otherwise diametrically opposed administrations.

The Cybercriminals Who Organized a $243 Million Crypto Heist

A few days after the attempted kidnapping, though, Castrovinci says his team received a tip from the F.B.I. that cast the case in a strange new light: a possible connection to an enormous cryptocurrency heist, one that happened just a week before the attack. A group of young men, some of whom connected on a Minecraft server, were suspected of taking a quarter of a billion dollars from an unwitting victim, setting off an incredible chain of events that involved an online network of cybercriminals, some of them teenagers; a group of independent digital detectives who track their efforts; and several law-enforcement agencies. Now, it seemed, the whole thing had culminated in the kidnapping of the Chetals — a real-world spillover from the brazen lawlessness of this expanding digital underworld and the culture that surrounds it.

SEC Staffing: Senators Want Info on Impact of Cuts

When new SEC Chairman Paul Atkins showed up for his first day of work, he had a letter on his desk from half a dozen Democratic senators asking about whether the SEC would investigate “actions by President Trump, donors, and other potential insiders that may constitute market manipulation, insider trading, or other violations of federal securities laws in connection with President Trump’s tariff actions and announcements.” The letter also asked for information about how recent SEC staff cuts have affected the agency’s ability to “monitor and respond to large-scale market events, such as the crash following President Trump’s tariff actions?”

Chairman Atkins is extremely unlikely to seek my advice on a response, but if he asked for my thoughts about the insider trading question, I’d probably tell him something like “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.” On the other hand, I’d tell him that I think the question about the impact of the agency’s staff cuts is one that a lot of people are asking, albeit not in such an overtly politicized way.