I have previously written about the peculiar structure of disclosure obligations with respect to municipal securities in my Sept. 22, 2020 Blog “SEC Focus on Municipal Securities Disclosure and Enforcement.” As I detailed there:

When the two key Federal Securities Laws (the Securities Act of 1933 [the “33 Act”] and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 [the “34 Act”]) were enacted, municipal securities (the bonds, notes, etc.,

Paulsboro, New Jersey, is a small (2020 census: 6,196 residents) borough in Gloucester County, created in 1904 when the New Jersey Legislature carved it out of Greenwich Township. It was named after Samuel Philip Paul, a settler of the area, and is the site of the Tinicum Island Rear Range Lighthouse, as it sits on the Delaware River.» Read More

The notion of a Consolidated Audit Trail (“CAT”) arose in the early days of the 21^st century, which in 2005  led to the creation of the National Market System when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) adopted regulation NMS as laid out in my Sept.» Read More

Malta: geography, history, and pirates.

The island country of Malta, three islands that together constitute the Malta archipelago, is in the middle (almost the exact middle) of the Mediterranean Sea, halfway between Italy and Libya and almost equidistant between Gibraltar and Lebanon.» Read More

This is a tale of the inventiveness offered to fraudsters by the Internet, and the resulting problems presented to one of the “cops on the beat,” i.e., the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). I have previously written about some of the issues posed by the universal connectivity (and not necessarily evident transparency) of the Internet: see my March 30, 2021, Blog “Under the Cover of Darkness: Insider Trading and the Dark Web” and my Aug.» Read More

On Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) instituted Administrative and Cease-and-Desist Proceedings (the “Proceedings”) against Conrad Neil Normann (“Normann”), 57, of Scottsville, New York. Normann was associated as a day trader with a proprietary trading firm registered with the SEC as a Broker/Dealer.» Read More

Gregory Blotnick (“Blotnick”), age 35, is a resident of Palm Beach, Florida. He was the founder, sole owner, managing partner, and only employee of Brattle Street Capital, LLC, a New York limited liability company (“BSC”) headquartered in New York, NY. BSC is the unregistered investment adviser to a private investment fund, BSC Opportunistic Equity, LP, a Delaware limited partnership (the “Fund”), founded by Blotnick in June 2019, and headquartered in New York, NY.» Read More

Until 1864 no generally available system existed to assess the creditworthiness of borrowers; instead, lenders, whether dealing with Commodore Vanderbilt or the proverbial “John Smith,” had to rely on informal information obtained from neighbors, community, or otherwise about a putative borrower’s reputation and perceived financial capacity. As» Read More

Traditional “Pump and Dump” schemes involve stimulating investor interest in low-cost (typically less than $1 per share) stock using press releases, cold calls, and social media advertising to spread false or misleading information about the issuing company. As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) warns on its “Investor.gov» Read More

On Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) instituted two related Administrative and Cease-and-Desist Proceedings: one against IFP Advisors, LLC, a Florida limited liability company (“IFP”) headquartered in Tampa and registered with the SEC as an Investment Adviser since 2008, which as of May 2022 had more than $10 billion under management; and the other against Richard Keith Robertson (“Robertson”), age 56, of Del Mar, California, who was from October 2010 to December 2018 an investment adviser representative (“IAR”) associated with IFP.» Read More