The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed new rules and required disclosures for initial public offerings through special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). If adopted, the new rules would require additional reporting about SPAC sponsors, conflicts of interest, and sources of dilution. They also would require additional disclosures regarding business combinations Read More
Two banking regulators have together assessed a $140 million civil money penalty against USAA Federal Savings Bank for what they called “willful violations” of the Bank Secrecy Act. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) levied enforcement actions against USAA including Read More
A new report gives some companies a failing grade for racial and gender pay equity and their efforts to disclose and act on such pay disparity. Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Disney, Oracle, and Walmart were among the companies that received an “F” for their public pay equity disclosures and practices. Of Read More
The Justice Department obtained more than $5.6 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving the False Claims Act during the 2021 fiscal year. It was the second largest annual total in the history of cases of fraud and false claims against the U.S. government under the law, and Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission is revisiting Dodd-Frank Act era rules that require companies to disclose more information about how their executive pay lines up with the company’s financial performance. This week the agency proposed new rules that is said would better reflect Congress’ intent to shed light on corporate Read More
The Federal Trade Commission has sued to block Lockheed Martin’s $4.4 billion proposed deal to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne, the last independent U.S. supplier of missile propulsion systems. The move could signal an emboldened FTC that could look to provide greater scrutiny on deals it considers potentially harmful to competition. Aerojet Read More
Securities industry regulator FINRA has hit Credit Suisse Securities with a $9 million fine for failing to comply with rules requiring firms to disclose potential conflicts of interest when issuing research reports and for violating the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Customer Protection Rule. As part of the settlement, FINRA also Read More
The United Kingdom’s Financial Reporting Council has expanded its investigation into audits conducted by Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers of Babcock International Group to include the fiscal years 2019 and 2020. The FRC was already investigating the accounting firm’s audits of the U.K. defense contractor in 2018 and 2017, after spot Read More
A new report finds that regulatory enforcement actions against financial institutions and their employees totaled $5.4 billion for non-compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and data privacy regulations last year, in comparison to $10.6 billion in 2020, a decline of just under 50 percent. The report, issued by Fenergo, which provides Read More
Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay $60 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by customers alleging that the bank had failed to protect their sensitive private data. Plaintiffs allege that in two separate incidents in 2016 and 2019, Morgan Stanley failed to properly dispose of retired IT equipment Read More
