Tag: Rule 10b-5
Is “insider giving” a potent substitute for insider trading?
Most everyone knows that trading on the basis of material non-public inside information is likely to get you in trouble with the law, but charitable giving on the basis of MNPI—maybe not so much. As reported in this article in the WSJ, a new study from a group of business and law school professors looked at “insider giving,” or, as the study authors describe it, “opportunism posing as, or at least muddled with, ordinary philanthropy.” In essence, according to the WSJ, with insider giving, the donor “tim[es] the donation of a stock to a charity around inside information about the stock. That way, you take a tax deduction before bad news sends the share price tumbling or after good news sends the price higher—and the gift delivers a bigger deduction than you would have gotten otherwise.” The donation is not only tax deductible, it’s also exempt from capital gains tax that would be due on the appreciation in value upon the sale. One of the authors characterized these donations to the WSJ as “suggest[ing] more than chance….The fact that large shareholders can determine or choose—with pinpoint accuracy—the average maximum price over a two-year period when they give gifts is surprising.’” The study authors argue that the practice is “far more widespread than previously believed,” and relied on by insiders, including large investors. Insider giving, they conclude, “is a potent substitute for insider trading.” It’s worth remembering that it was a study reported in the WSJ about stock option backdating that kicked off the option backdating scandal of the mid-2000s (see, e.g., this news brief, this news brief and this news brief). Could “insider giving” be the new option backdating scandal?
SEC charges misleading claims and inadequate due diligence in SPAC transaction
The SEC has announced charges against Stable Road Acquisition Corp. (a SPAC), SRC-NI (its sponsor), Brian Kabot (its CEO), Momentus, Inc. (the SPAC’s proposed merger target), and Mikhail Kokorich (Momentus’s founder and former CEO) for misleading claims about Momentus’s technology and about national security risks associated with Kokorich. All the parties have settled other than Kokorich, against whom the SEC has filed a separate complaint. Under the Order, the settling parties agreed to aggregate penalties of over $8 million and voluminous, specific investor protection undertakings. The SPAC sponsor also agreed to forfeit the founder’s shares that it would otherwise have received if the merger were approved. The merger vote is currently scheduled for August 2021. SEC Chair Gary Gensler weighed in—a rare comment on a litigation settlement, perhaps signaling the significance of the case: “This case illustrates risks inherent to SPAC transactions, as those who stand to earn significant profits from a SPAC merger may conduct inadequate due diligence and mislead investors….Stable Road, a SPAC, and its merger target, Momentus, both misled the investing public. The fact that Momentus lied to Stable Road does not absolve Stable Road of its failure to undertake adequate due diligence to protect shareholders. Today’s actions will prevent the wrongdoers from benefitting at the expense of investors and help to better align the incentives of parties to a SPAC transaction with those of investors relying on truthful information to make investment decisions.”
Can hypothetical risk factors be misleading?
In In re Alphabet Securities Litigation., the State of Rhode Island, as lead plaintiff, filed a Rule10b-5 action against Google LLC, its holding company Alphabet, Inc., and certain executives, alleging that the defendants failed to timely disclose certain cybersecurity defects and vulnerabilities. The district court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint, but on appeal, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reversed in part, holding that the complaint “plausibly alleged” that the decision to omit information about these cybersecurity vulnerabilities “significantly altered the total mix of information available for decision-making by a reasonable investor” and that scienter—intent to deceive, manipulate or defraud—was adequately alleged. Importantly, the Court held that the complaint contained a plausible allegation that Alphabet’s omission was materially misleading: its risk factor discussion of cybersecurity was framed in the hypothetical, while, it was alleged, the “hypothetical” events had in fact already come to fruition. The case serves as a reminder of a couple of now-familiar themes: companies need to regularly review their risk factor disclosures, even when—or perhaps especially when—they are incorporating them by reference to ensure that they have been appropriately updated to reflect actual events that may have made the risks described as merely hypothetical no longer so. It’s also notable that this case represents the second recent instance of allegations of failure to disclose the discovery of a material cybersecurity “vulnerability”—in the absence of a cyberattack—with disclosure ultimately compelled by the publication of an article exposing the defects. It’s another reminder that companies need to be vigilant for potential disclosure obligations about cybersecurity that might arise outside the context of cyberattacks and hacks—in the more-difficult-to-assess context of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
Wells Fargo executives charged with disclosure of false and misleading KPIs and certifications
Earlier this month, the SEC announced settled charges against former Wells Fargo CEO and Chairman, John G. Stumpf, as well as charges against former head of Wells Fargo’s Community Bank, Carrie L. Tolstedt, alleging that they misled investors about the success of the Community Bank, Wells Fargo’s core business. (Wells had already agreed to pay $3 billion to settle charges from the SEC and the Department of Justice.) The SEC charged that they made misleading public statements about the company’s strategy and a key performance indicator, the “cross-sell metric,” and signed misleading certifications and sub-certifications as to the accuracy of these and other public disclosures. In the Order, Stumpf has agreed to settle the action against him for $2.5 million, but Tolstedt has not agreed to settle, and the SEC has filed a complaint against her in Federal District Court, seeking an officer and director bar, a monetary penalty and disgorgement. The Order and complaint highlight, once again, problems that can arise out of public disclosure of misleading key performance indicators. Moreover, the SEC’s allegations provide a cautionary tale about the responsibility of those signing certifications (and sub-certifications) regarding the accuracy of periodic reports to heed clear alarm bells and question sub-certifications where appropriate to do so.
SEC charges Nissan and former CEO with fraud for concealing compensation
Yesterday, the SEC announced settled fraud charges under Rule 10b-5 against Nissan, its former CEO Carlos Ghosn, and Gregory Kelly, a former director, related to the failure to disclose over $140 million to be paid to Ghosn in retirement. (Here is the SEC’s Order and the complaint against Ghosn and Kelly filed in the SDNY.) Of course, you may be aware that Ghosn and the former director have been arrested by Japanese authorities and are awaiting trial, so these SEC charges were probably not the biggest glitch in their career paths. Nevertheless, the SEC’s action does stand as a warning that the SEC remains on the lookout for efforts to hide or disguise compensation from required public disclosure, especially where CEO discretion regarding compensation is largely unconstrained.
SCOTUS finds primary securities fraud liability for disseminating statements made by others with intent to defraud
Last week, SCOTUS decided Lorenzo v. SEC, a case involving a claim that an investment banker was liable for securities fraud when, at the direction of his boss, he cut, pasted and disseminated to potential investors information that his boss had provided, even though the banker knew the information was false. In a 2011 case, Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, SCOTUS had held that, an “investment adviser who had merely ‘participat[ed] in the drafting of a false statement’ ‘made’ by another could not be held liable in a private action under subsection (b) of Rule10b–5.” (Rule 10b–5(b) prohibits the “mak[ing]” of “any untrue statement of a material fact.”) In Lorenzo, the question before the Court was whether a person who did not “make” statements (that is, who did not have “ultimate authority” over the statements), but who knowingly disseminated false statements to potential investors with intent to defraud, could be found to have violated subsections (a) and (c) of Rule 10b–5. The answer, in an opinion written by Justice Breyer, was yes. Will this case embolden plaintiff’s counsel to push the envelope and assert claims against people who are only peripherally involved in the dissemination of allegedly false information? Time will tell what the ultimate impact of this case may be.
You want mandatory arbitration in your charter? Hey, just ask!
This is the opening paragraph from Tuesday’s column by Alison Frankel, one of my favorite legal columnists/bloggers:
“This could be the start of something huge: Securities and Exchange Commissioner Michael Piwowar said in a speech Monday to the Heritage Foundation that the SEC is open to the idea of allowing companies contemplating initial public offerings to include mandatory shareholder arbitration provisions in corporate charters. If Piwowar’s statements…mark a new SEC policy on mandatory arbitration, they could be the beginning of the end of securities fraud class actions.”
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