California Corporate & Securities Law

I don't hear many securities lawyers talking about "ecosystems".  Indeed, I think of the word as being more the province of environmental lawyers.  The word itself is an amalgamation of two Greek words - οἶκος, meaning house, and σύστημα, meaning a...

Planning for a congregational picnic this Sunday past, a local Lutheran church sought permission to use the neighboring Catholic church's parking lot.  The Catholic church graciously agreed to allow the use of its lot provided that the Lutherans...

"Nothing but blue skies From now on"

Recently, I enjoyed watching My Name is Bill W., a 1989 movie that starred James Woods, JoBeth Williams and James Garner.  The film tells the story of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder William Griffith Wilson (aka Bill W.).  In telling his story, the...

Insider trading cases remind me of the following joke attributed to stand-up comic Steven Wright:

In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), the Supreme Court held that the prosecution has a duty under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause to disclose evidence to a criminal defendant.   The former Chief Executive Officer of IAR Systems...

After a two week trial in 2013, a jury convicted Mitchell J. Stein, a lawyer, of mail, wire, and securities fraud based on evidence that he fabricated press releases and purchase orders to inflate the stock price of his client Signalife, Inc., a...

A lot of ink has been spilt on the United States Supreme Court's decision in Salman v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 420 (2016).  In that case, the Supreme Court upheld the criminal conviction of Mr. Bassam Salman who received lucrative trading tips...

Last week, I noted that Judge Gorsuch has expressed a certain skepticism of Chevron deference.  The next day, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Securities and Exchange Commission's interpretation of Section 19(d)(2) of the Securities...