Justia Securities Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
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This appeal arises from an enforcement action brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Appellants World Tree Financial, L.L.C. (World Tree) and its principals. After a bench trial, the district court found that the principal and World Tree engaged in a fraudulent “cherry-picking” scheme, in which they allocated favorable trades to themselves and favored clients and unfavorable trades to disfavored clients. It also found that all three Appellants made false and misleading statements about the firm’s allocation and trading practices. The court entered permanent injunctions against the principal and World Tree, ordered them to disgorge ill-gotten gains, and imposed civil penalties on each Appellant.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that Liu v. SEC, 140 S. Ct. 1936, 1940 (2020) does not require the district court to conduct its own search for business deductions that Appellants have not identified. Accordingly, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in ordering disgorgement.   The court explained that unlike in Liu, in this case, Appellants did not challenge the SEC’s proposed disgorgement amount in their pretrial or posttrial submissions—instead, they argued only that there was no “basis for disgorgement.” Nor did the principal and World Tree propose specific deduction amounts, either before the district court or to this court. View "SEC v. World Tree" on Justia Law

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The SEC accused Defendant of violating antifraud and registration provisions of the Securities Act and antifraud provisions of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5. Defendant neither admitted nor denied those allegations but consented to a judgment containing four relevant prongs of relief. The SEC asked for “disgorgement” in that amount and calculated the prejudgment interest at $424,375.38. It did not specify the appropriate civil penalty but requested that the court impose one of the options in the highest tier allowed by statute.   The court entered final judgment ordering Defendant to pay $1,901,480 in “disgorgement” and $424,375.38 in prejudgment interest. It also imposed a civil penalty after concluding that Defendant’s conduct merited the highest amount provided by the Exchange Act   Defendant appealed each of those orders and the denial of an evidentiary hearing. He says the lack of an evidentiary hearing denied him due process. He also renews three substantive challenges to the district court’s remedies. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment order.   The court explained that none of Defendant’s challenges to the district court’s remedies has merit. He has foreclosed some of them by failing to raise them timely or to raise them properly. And Congress has foreclosed his position on the availability of disgorgement without tracing or a profit-generating res. The district court had authority to impose each element of its remedies, and it did not abuse its discretion in doing so. View "SEC v. Hallam" on Justia Law

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Defendants settled a civil enforcement action that the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) brought against them for alleged securities violations. The SEC barred Defendants from denying that they engaged in the charged conduct as a condition of settlement (the “no-deny policy”). The parties executed consent agreements containing provisions to that effect and submitted them to the district court, which entered final judgments. Five years later, Defendants filed a motion under Rule 60(b)(4) and 60(b)(5) seeking relief from the final judgments to the extent that they incorporated the no-deny policy. They argued that the no-deny policy violates their First Amendment and due process rights. The district court denied the motion, and Defendants appealed.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling holding that Defendants are not entitled to relief based on any alleged First Amendment Violations. Defendants argue that, in denying their motion for Rule 60(b)(4) relief, the district court adopted a cribbed view of Espinosa that the Fifth Circuit rejected in Brumfield. The court wrote that Defendants read Brumfield too broadly. That decision expressly recognized that “a judgment is void under Rule 60(b)(4) only if the court lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter, or of the parties, ‘or it acted in a manner inconsistent with due process of law.’”   Next, Defendants asserted that the judgments here should “be set aside as violating the public interest under Rule 60(b)(5).” They argue that retaining the no-deny policy in the judgments harms the public interest. The court explained that Defendants failed to meet their burden of establishing that changed circumstances warrant relief. View "SEC v. Novinger" on Justia Law

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The en banc court held that the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 does not strip the federal district courts of subject-matter jurisdiction to hear structural constitutional claims. The en banc court stated that 15 U.S.C. 78y does not explicitly or implicitly strip the district court of jurisdiction over plaintiff's claim; the Supreme Court has already rejected the SEC's precise jurisdictional argument under section 78y; and the Thunder Basin factors do not warrant departing from the statutory text or deviating from the Supreme Court's interpretation of section 78y. In this case, plaintiff's removal power claim is wholly collateral to the Exchange Act's statutory-review scheme, is outside the SEC's expertise, and might never receive judicial review if district court jurisdiction were precluded. Therefore, the en banc court concluded that the Thunder Basin inquiry simply reaffirms that Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Co. Accounting Oversight Board, 561 U.S. 477, 489 (2010), controls this case and that plaintiff's removal power claim is within the district court's jurisdiction.The en banc court also held that plaintiff's removal power challenge is ripe where her claim is a pure issue of law that is fit for judicial decision without any additional factfinding. Furthermore, if plaintiff's claim is meritorious, then withholding judicial consideration would injure her by forcing her to litigate before an ALJ who is unconstitutionally insulated from presidential control. Accordingly, the en banc court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cochran v. Securities and Exchange Commission" on Justia Law

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In 2008, Blackburn founded Treaty an oil and gas company whose shares were traded over the counter as “penny stocks.” Blackburn received around 400 million shares, giving him an 86.4% interest in Treaty. Though Blackburn was never a board member or an officer of Treaty, he maintained significant control. He communicated with a foreign government on behalf of Treaty, paid the company’s bills with his stock proceeds, and appointed Treaty’s officers and directors. Treaty had previously worked at a gravel company that went bankrupt. Blackburn paid over $1 million to settle the trustee’s claim that he had misappropriated company funds. Blackburn had also been convicted of four federal tax felonies. Blackburn recruited others, with clean records, to serve in public positions; they failed to disclose in public filings Blackburn’s involvement with Treaty.In 2014, the SEC asserted claims against Treaty, Blackburn, and others under the Securities Act. 15 U.S.C. 77e(a), 77q(a). The company and one defendant settled. The district court found the others liable for selling unregistered securities and misleading investors about the company’s production of oil and Blackburn’s involvement. It ordered disgorgement of the defendants’ fraud proceeds. The Fifth Circuit affirmed. Summary judgment was warranted in the SEC’s favor and the disgorgement award was “for the benefit of investors” as required by the Supreme Court’s 2020 “Liu” decision. View "Securities and Exchange Commission v. Blackburn" on Justia Law

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This action stemmed from the collapse of Robert Stanford's Ponzi scheme. Plaintiffs, investors who purchased certificates of deposits (CDs) with Stanford International Bank, Ltd. (SIBL), filed suit against SEI Private Trust Company, businesses that had a longstanding relationship with SIBL.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for a continuance for further discovery and award of summary judgment to SEI where the district court concluded that SEI did not control the primary securities violations of Sanford Trust Company (STC). The court rejected plaintiffs' contention that the district court applied the wrong legal standard and ignored factual disputes as to SEI's asserted control. Rather, the court concluded that the district court correctly identified that plaintiffs need not prove that SEI participated in the fraudulent transaction. The court also concluded that SEI has offered competent evidence that it lacked power to control the STC's primary securities violations. View "Lillie v. Office of Financial Institutions State of Louisiana" on Justia Law

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This case arises out of R. Allen Stanford's Ponzi scheme. Plaintiffs filed suit against SEI and SEI's insurers, seeking to hold SEI liable under the control-person provision of Louisiana Securities Law. In this case, plaintiffs allege that SEI is liable for STC's violations under the control-person provision of Louisiana Securities Law based on SEI's contractual relationship with STC.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to SEI and its insurers, holding that SEI was not a control person under the statute. The court need not determine whether the investors must establish that SEI had control over STC's day-to-day operations because plaintiffs fail to demonstrate a genuine dispute of material fact that SEI directly or indirectly controlled STC's primary violations. Because the district court properly granted summary judgment to SEI, the court also affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment on all claims against the insurers. View "Ahders v. SEI Private Trust Co." on Justia Law

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The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims in a putative class action alleging that defendants' omissions from a proxy statement led Tesco shareholders to approve an all-stock acquisition by Nabors.Under the heightened pleading requirements of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA), the court held that plaintiff failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. In regard to plaintiff's claims under Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that the proxy statement was misleading because it omitted certain material facts, the court held that plaintiff failed to identify how the four allegedly omitted pieces of information were necessary in order to make the statements therein not false or misleading. The court rejected plaintiff's remaining contentions as to this issue. In regard to plaintiff's claims under Section 20(a) of the 1934 Act that the individual defendants are liable for any violations committed by people they controlled, plaintiff failed to state a predicate claim under Section 14(a) and SEC Rule 14a-9. Finally, the court held that amendment would be futile and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying leave to amend. View "Heinze v. Tesco Corp." on Justia Law

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Judicial review of SEC proceedings lies in the courts of appeals after the agency rules. At issue was whether a party may nonetheless raise a constitutional challenge to an SEC enforcement action in federal district court before the agency proceeding ends.Bound by Bank of La. v. FDIC, 919 F.3d 916 (5th Cir. 2019), and in accord with the unanimous view of other circuits, the Fifth Circuit held that the statutory review scheme is the exclusive path for asserting a constitutional challenge to SEC proceedings. In this case, the court held that the Thunder Basin analysis does not show that Congress exempted plaintiff's claims from the common path for judicial review of agency action—direct appeal to a court of appeals after the agency rules—that it adopted for the SEC. The court explained that plaintiff may raise her removal-power claim before the ALJ and, if she loses before the agency, in a court of appeals. Furthermore, she may even be able to get her claim all the way to the Supreme Court, but she cannot circumvent the statutory review scheme by litigating it now in a federal trial court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment and dissolved the stay of the SEC proceeding. View "Cochran v. Securities and Exchange Commission" on Justia Law

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The Fifth Circuit treated the Petition for Rehearing En Banc as a petition for panel rehearing, granted the petition, withdrew its prior opinions, and substituted the following opinions.These consolidated cases stemmed from an SEC complaint against Robert Allen Stanford, the Stanford International Bank, and other Stanford entities, alleging a massive, ongoing fraud. The receiver subsequently filed suit against two of Stanford's insurance brokers as participants in the fraudulent scheme. The district court entered bar orders and approved settlements after the insurance brokers ultimately agreed to settle conditioned on bar orders enjoining related Ponzi-scheme suits filed against the brokers. Objectors appealed.The court held that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction over the Willis and BMB bar orders enjoining third-party investors' claims; the bar orders enjoining the investors' third-party claims fell well within the broad jurisdiction of the district court to protect the receivership res; and thus the district court did not abuse its discretion by entering the bar orders to effectuate and preserve the coordinating function of the receivership. The court also held that the bar orders negotiated here were legitimate exercises of the receiver's authority; they prevented Florida and Texas state-court proceedings from interfering with the res in custody of the federal district court; and aided the district court's jurisdiction over the receivership entities. Finally, the court held that there was no illicit class settlement and the orders did not offend Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23; objectors were not entitled to a jury trial; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in approving the BMB and Willis settlement agreements. View "SEC v. Stanford International Bank" on Justia Law