Justia Securities Law Opinion Summaries

Hansen, a farmer, served as a bank trust officer. In 2003, he invested, through Johnson (a stock broker), in the Hudson Fund, a hedge fund Johnson ran with Onsa and Puma. Hansen continued investing with the three. In 2007 Hansen and Johnson formed RAHFCO limited partnership. Hansen served as general partner, but delegated responsibility for executing trades to the Hudson Fund. Hansen misrepresented RAHFCO to investors, directly and through a private placement memo. Hansen prepared and sent investors earnings statements that falsely inflated RAHFCO’s performance. Hansen later testified that he relied on Onsa and Johnson to provide the numbers and never confirmed them. Hansen hired an accounting firm for an audit, but the firm quit after Hansen refused to authorize it to obtain a brokerage statement confirming RAHFCO’s investments. RAHFCO’s law firm withdrew. Johnson was charged in 2007 with securities fraud concerning another company. Onsa was sued civilly for fraudulent securities trading in 2009. Hansen never informed investors of any of these events nor did he attempt to find another auditor. In 2011, RAHFCO collapsed. Convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1341, 1343, 1349, Hansen was sentenced to 108 months imprisonment and ordered to pay $17 million restitution to 75 victims. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, upholding the use of a willful blindness instruction and an instruction on conspiracy. View "United States v. Hansen" on Justia Law

After Lehman entered into a Securities Investor Protection Act (SIPA), 15 U.S.C. 78lll(2)(A), liquidation, Doral submitted timely claims asserting that it was entitled to recover the profit from a repurchased agreement. The SIPA Trustee denied these claims, concluding that Doral was not a “customer” of Lehman, and therefore was not protected by SIPA. Doral promptly objected to the Trustee’s denial, but shortly thereafter transferred its claims to CarVal. The bankruptcy court affirmed the Trustee's determination that the repos did not make Doral or CarVal a customer under SIPA. The court concluded that an investor who delivers securities to a broker‐dealer as part of a repurchase agreement is not protected by SIPA because the investor did not entrust assets to the broker‐dealer. Accordingly, the court affirmed the lower courts' determination that CarVal is not a customer for purposes of SIPA. View "CarVal v. Giddens" on Justia Law

Rodd, an investment advisor who produced and was regularly featured on a Minnesota local radio show, “Safe Money Radio,” was convicted of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343 and mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1341, for swindling 23 investors out of $1.8 million. Rodd used the radio show to market low-risk investment products to gain customers’ trust and maintain a client base for soliciting participants in a fraudulent investment scheme. Rodd solicited money by promising liquidity, safety, and a 60% six-month return. Rodd instead used the money for personal and business expenses, hiding behind false assurances of security and payouts to his early investors. Finding an advisory guidelines range of 70 to 87 months, the district court sentenced Rodd to 87 months in prison, applying a two-level enhancement for abusing a position of trust, U.S.S.G. 3B1.3, The Eighth Circuit affirmed, upholding the finding that Rodd occupied a position of trust. As a self-employed investment advisor, Rodd was subject to no oversight except by his investors. The discretion and control he possessed over client funds adequately supported the finding. The court did not err in failing to apply a two-level acceptance-of-responsibility reduction. Rodd took his case to trial and denied his guilt to the end. View "United States v. Rodd" on Justia Law

Harman and three of its officers are alleged to have knowingly and recklessly propped up the Company’s stock price by making materially false and misleading statements about the Company’s financial condition and by failing to disclose related material adverse facts in violation of federal securities laws. At issue is whether the complaint stated a plausible claim of securities fraud with respect to three alleged statements that focus primarily on the status of the Company’s personal navigational device (“PND”) products. The court held that, although the challenge to the forward-looking nature of two statements was forfeited, the complaint plausibly alleges that those statements were not entitled to safe harbor protection because the accompanying cautionary statements were misleading insofar as they failed to account for historical facts about PNDs that would have been important to a reasonable investor. Further, the third statement, in the Company’s annual report, is plausibly understood, in the alleged circumstances, as a specific statement about its recent financial performance and not mere puffery. Accordingly, the court reversed the dismissal of the complaint and remanded for further proceedings. View "In Re: Harman Int'l Indus." on Justia Law

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission concluded that Battoo committed fraud. Battoo and his companies, all located outside the United States, defaulted in the suits. The district judge froze all assets pending a final decision about ownership. The court appointed a Receiver to marshal the remaining assets and try to determine ownership. The Receiver has been recognized as the assets’ legitimate controller in several other nations, including China (Hong Kong), Guernsey, and the Bahamas. Battoo defied the injunction and transferred control of some investment vehicles, located in the British Virgin Islands, to court-appointed Liquidators, who asked the judge to modify the injunction and allow them to distribute assets located in the U.S. or England immediately. The Liquidators maintain that, because Battoo no longer has control, the justification for freezing the assets has lapsed. The court assumed that the Liquidators are now under judicial control, but declined to modify the injunction, ruling that the funds should remain available so that an eventual master plan of distribution can treat all investors equitably. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. It is not clear whether some investment interests can be disentangled reliably from those affected by Battoo’s frauds against U.S. investors; the Liquidators have not argued that any investor is suffering loss as a result of the Receiver’s investment decisions. View "Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Battoo" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of securities fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to conceal assets and make fraudulent transfers, concealment of assets, fraudulent transfer, uttering coins, and money laundering. The offenses arose from Defendant’s fraudulent schemes used to cheat numerous victims out of more than a million dollars and to manipulate the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to shield his ill-gotten gains from creditors. The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s conviction and sentence, holding (1) there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s guilty verdict; and (2) the district court properly calculated the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range and imposed a procedurally and substantively reasonable sentence. View "United States v. Pacheco-Martinez" on Justia Law

In 2010, a West Virginia federal judge ordered Patriot to install environmental remediation facilities at two of its mines. From October 2010 until May 2012, for accounting purposes, Patriot recorded the installation costs as capital expenditures. After corresponding with the Securities and Exchange Commission about this accounting treatment, Patriot restated its financial documents in 2012 to recognize the installation costs as expenses. The restatement caused Patriot’s asset retirement obligation expense and net loss to increase by $49.7 million for 2010 and $23.6 million for 2011. Patriot’s share priced dropped. The company filed for bankruptcy. A securities fraud class action was filed on behalf of all persons who acquired Patriot securities between October 2010, and July 2012, alleging violations of sections 10(b), 20(a), and 20(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78a and SEC Rule 10b–5, against Patriot’s former Chief Executive Officer and former Chief Financial Officer. Plaintiffs argued Defendants fraudulently capitalized the environmental facilities’ installation costs to avoid the impact expensing the costs would have on Patriot’s bottom line. The district court dismissed for failing to meet the heightened requirement for pleading scienter under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, 15 U.S.C. 78u-4. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, finding that the more compelling inference is that Defendants did not act with fraudulent intent. View "Podraza v. Whiting" on Justia Law

The Arkansas Securities Commissioner filed a civil regulatory action against three individuals (collectively, Appellees), alleging that Appellees engaged in the sale of unregistered securities - in the form of notes for real estate loans with a fixed rate of interest - and offering and selling securities despite not being licensed as brokers or agents in violation of the Arkansas Securities Act. The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of Appellees, concluding that the notes at issue were not securities based on the test announced by the Arkansas Court of Appeals in Smith v. State. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that while the Smith test is instructive, the all-inclusive nature of the test set forth by the Supreme Court in Schultz v. Rector-Phillips-Morse, Inc. is better suited to the purposes of the Act. Remanded. View "Waters v. Millsap" on Justia Law

This derivative action arose out of the London Whale trading debacle. Plaintiff, a JPMorgan shareholder, filed suit seeking to compel JPMorgan to take action, up to and including suing the alleged wrongdoers. The district court dismissed the complaint, finding that plaintiff had not pleaded facts showing that the JPMorgan Board of Directors had wrongfully refused the demand for action. The court noted that the abuse‐of‐discretion standard of review for the dismissal of derivative action cases should be retired, and that dismissals of derivative actions should be reviewed under the same de novo standard that the court followed in all other similarly situated cases. However, because the court is bound by the rule of the Circuit, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing this derivative action. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. Finally, the district court did not err by denying plaintiff an opportunity to amend his complaint. View "Espinoza v. Dimon" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, a putative class of former Guaranty stockholders whose equity interests were wiped out when Guaranty failed, filed suit alleging federal securities law claims against four former Guaranty executives. Plaintiffs alleged that the executives made materially false and misleading statements regarding Guaranty’s assets. The district court dismissed the claims. The court concluded that, under a holistic review, the Second Amended Complaint confirms that plaintiffs have failed to adequately plead facts that raise a strong inference of scienter. Because plaintiffs have not raised a strong inference of scienter as to any defendant, the court need not reach the issue of loss causation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Owens v. Jastrow" on Justia Law