Securities Docket

Former congressman George Santos will pay more than $35,000 to settle a regulator's claim that he manipulated wagers on prediction market Kalshi over whether he would attend the State of the Union. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Friday that Santos made over $17,000 by making timely bets on his attendance at the president's annual address to Congress.

Savitt's move is notable even in an industry gripped by a transfer-market fren y in recent years, where superstars are offered pay packages in excess of $20mn a year to jump ship. Such moves have largely applied to top M&A and private equity lawyers, who produce a large and growing fee pool that is more predictable than litigation work. Savitt's move is the clearest sign yet of how far-reaching the talent battle has become, spreading to litigators and law firm leaders.

Hueston Hennigan announces the addition of Ben Balding as of counsel in its Los Angeles office. Mr. Balding was most recently a supervisory assistant U.S. attorney in the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, where he served as lead or co-lead counsel in more than 10 trials. With nearly 20 years of experience as a trial lawyer and litigator, he will focus on high-stakes complex commercial litigation and white collar defense.

Barnes & Thornburg announced today the additions of partners Jeff Ansley and Andrew Robbins in Dallas and partner David Last in Washington D.C., further bolstering the firm's White Collar, Compliance and Investigations (WCCI) practice with three accomplished former federal prosecutors and trial lawyers. Source: Barnes & Thornburg Expands White Collar Practice With Addition of Former Federal Prosecutors | Barnes & Thornburg

It is not certain that every trade on US politics funded from a US-based crypto exchange is done by a US-based trader, but it is certain that some of them are (because those people keep getting arrested for insider trading!). As a legal matter, Polymarket is not allowed to take bets from US customers on its main exchange; as a practical matter, it is. Are these facts related? I mean: -If your Polymarket trading is illegal anyway, might you also be tempted to illegally insider trade on Polymarket?

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether plans by Truth Social's parent company to sell Wall Street firms real-time access to President Trump's posts could violate federal securities laws, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Axios. Why it matters: The letter escalates scrutiny of Trump Media & Technology Group's plan to monetize faster access for institutional investors to President Trump's market-moving social posts.

James Patten, who helped orchestrate a stock manipulation scheme that led to a company that owned a single money-losing New Jersey deli being valued at $100 million, was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Tuesday. Patten, 67, asked Judge Christine O'Hearn to sentence him to no time in prison at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Camden, New Jersey, the same court where he had pleaded guilty to securities fraud and conspiracy in December 2023.

In comment letters, investors have hammered the agency for the proposal's lack of sound reasoning or analysis to support the notion that quarterly reporting dissuades companies from going public or encourages short-term thinking, they said. Semiannual reporting would also make markets less transparent, less efficient and less competitive, they say.

When Coinbase sought FOIA records to shed light on the agency's interpretation of securities laws with respect to digital assets, the SEC refused-so we took it to court, and a judge ordered the SEC to produce them. But there was a twist: The agency tasked with policing corporate record-keeping somehow lost reams of its own text messages between Mr. Gensler and other officials during the most intense period of the anti-crypto campaign.

Fridman Fels & Soto, PLLC, a white-collar criminal defense and litigation law firm, announced today that Eric I. Bustillo, former Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Miami Regional Office, has joined the firm as partner. Bustillo will represent companies and individuals in SEC enforcement actions and investigations, securities litigation, SEC whistleblower, and white-collar criminal defense matters.