Davis Polk Discusses SEC Chair’s Bid to Reframe Shareholder Proposals

By Ning Chiu and Joseph A. Hall October 23, 2025 by jlucero

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins’ speech last week in Delaware sounded to many like a death knell for shareholder proposals under Rule 14a-8. In fact, it was far more strategic: the opening move to test whether Delaware corporate law even permits …

Schulte Roth Discusses SEC Guidance That Meme Coins Are Not Securities

By Stephanie Breslow, Craig Warkol, John Nowak, Jake Preiserowicz and Kolby Loft March 14, 2025 by renholding

On Feb. 27, 2025, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance (“Division”) issued guidance that meme coins — defined as speculative crypto assets inspired by internet memes, cultural trends, or social media phenomena — do not constitute securities under federal securities …

Ropes & Gray Discusses Third Circuit Coinbase Decision Pressuring SEC on Crypto Rulemaking

By Melissa Bender, Helen Gugel, Glen Hai Chen, Edward Baer, and Stefan Schropp January 30, 2025 by eorozco

On January 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued an opinion requiring the SEC to provide a more complete explanation for its refusal to engage in formal notice-and-comment rulemaking regarding the application of securities laws to …

Cleary Discusses Second Circuit Decision That Syndicated Loans Are Not Securities

By Duane McLaughlin, Jared Gerber, Sabrina Singer, Anirudh Sivaram and Allison Caramico September 27, 2023 by renholding

On August 24, 2023, the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of state-law securities claims in Kirschner v. JP Morgan Chase,[1] concluding that the plaintiff failed to adequately plead that the syndicated term loans at issue were securities. This …

A Tokenized Future: Regulatory Lessons from Crowdfunding and Standard Form Contracts

By Darian Ibrahim April 13, 2022 by renholding

Cryptocurrencies and other digital assets (“crypto”) are surging in popularity. If cryptos are securities (“investment contracts” under the Howey test), they must be sold in accordance with the federal securities laws. This likely requires registration with the Securities and Exchange …

Paul Weiss Discusses Federal Jury Verdict Finding Cryptocurrency Products Not Securities

By Meredith R. Dearborn, Roberto J. Gonzalez, Jonathan H. Ashtor, Kristina A. Bunting and Emily M. Glavin November 23, 2021 by renholding

On November 2, 2021, a federal jury in Audet v. Fraser found that four cryptocurrency-related products were not securities under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Connecticut Uniform Securities Act. This case is significant because it appears to …

Latham & Watkins Discusses Whether NFTs Are Securities

By Stephen P. Wink, Miles P. Jennings, Shaun Musuka and Deric Behar March 19, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

As the current crypto boom has progressed, it seemed Decentralized Finance (DeFi) had cemented its position as the dominant new narrative of this cycle. This view is supported by the tens of billions of dollars that have flowed into DeFi …

Davis Polk Discusses New SEC Climate and ESG Enforcement Task Force

By Joseph A. Hall, Michael Hong, Michael Kaplan, Gregory Rowland and Betty Moy Huber March 8, 2021 by snehapandya

On March 4, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a newly created Climate and ESG Task Force in the Division of Enforcement. The Climate and ESG Task Force will work closely with other areas of the SEC as part of …

King & Spalding Discusses Takeaways from GameStop

By John M. Anderson, Robert J. Leclerc, Aaron W. Lipson, Brett R. Schroeder and Michael J. Oberlies February 19, 2021 by snehapandya

The recent meteoric rise (and subsequent fall) of GameStop, AMC Theaters and a host of other “meme stocks” has prompted hedge funds, investment bankers, regulators and public company executives to critically re-examine their preparedness for extraordinary market volatility.

The meme …

Weil Gotshal Discusses Supreme Court’s Upcoming Class Certification Case

By Joseph S. Allerhand, Stacy Nettleton and Joshua M. Glasser December 21, 2020 by Nisha Chandra

On Friday night, December 11, 2020, tucked below its order denying Texas’s bid to overturn the results of the Presidential election, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review what petitioners Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and its former top executives (“Goldman”) …

Columbia Law Professors Write Two of Top Corporate and Securities Articles

By Reynolds Holding April 22, 2020 by renholding

John C. Coffee, Jr., Zohar Goshen, and Joshua R. Mitts were among the authors of two of the best corporate and securities articles last year, the Corporate Practice Commentator has announced. The Columbia Law School professors were joined by Robert

…

Why Cryptocurrencies Should Be Evaluated As Fiat Money

By J.S. Nelson February 27, 2020 by renholding

What are cryptocurrencies: securities, commodities, or another form of established currency – a non-sovereign fiat currency? In my forthcoming article, “Cryptocommunity Currencies,” I argue that, like other self-governing bodies, communities that issue cryptocurrencies should be judged on how …

Gibson Dunn Updates 2019 Year-End Securities Litigation

By Robert F. Serio, Brian M. Lutz, Monica K. Loseman, Jefferson E. Bell and Mark H. Mixon, Jr. February 26, 2020 by renholding

The number of securities cases filed in federal court continued at a furious pace for the third year in a row. This year-end update highlights what you most need to know in securities litigation trends and developments for the last …

Blockchain Will Not Solve the Proxy Voting Problem

By Park Bramhall July 31, 2019 by renholding

The U.S. proxy voting process is widely viewed as inefficient, opaque, and frequently inaccurate. The conventional wisdom is that voting inaccuracy has arisen largely as a result of decisions made in the 1960s to transition to a system of share …

Initial Crypto-asset Offerings, Tokenization, and Corporate Governance

By Stéphane Blemus and Dominique Guégan May 1, 2019 by renholding

Blockchain and other types of distributed ledger technology pose various new legal and economic questions for companies. Are crypto-asset holders a new kind of corporate stakeholder? If so, are they like shareholders or bondholders, and how can they participate in …

Cleary Gottlieb on Government Scrutiny of Cryptocurrencies and ICOs

By Alexis Collins, Grace Kurland and Adam Motiwala September 25, 2018 by abirvarma

On Tuesday, September 11, 2018, Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the Eastern District of New York issued a decision holding that Initial Coin Offerings (“ICO”) may qualify as securities offerings and therefore be subject to the criminal federal securities laws. …

Did Deregulation End the “Quiet Period” of Low-Risk Banking?

By Paul G. Mahoney September 18, 2018 by renholding

From the New Deal until the 1970s, banks were on a tight leash. Regulators controlled the rate of interest they could pay on deposits. Banks could not underwrite or deal in corporate securities. With some exceptions, they could not expand …

Revisiting the SEC Ruling on Whether Cryptocurrencies are Securities

By Usman W. Chohan August 17, 2018 by renholding

In June 2018, the cryptocurrency community waited with baited breath for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decision on whether cryptocurrencies were securities, commodities, or something else.

If the commission treated them as securities, they would be subject to …

Gibson Dunn Offers 2018 Mid-Year Update on Securities Litigation

By Monica Loseman, Matt Kahn, Brian Lutz and Laura O’Boyle August 15, 2018 by renholding

The continued explosion in the number of securities class action filings is once again the big headline in our half yearly update. The now-sustained increase in both the number of filings and average and median settlement amounts—including a five-fold increase …

Davis Polk Discusses Ninth Circuit Approval of Securities Suit Over Unsponsored ADRs

By Michael S. Flynn, Michael Kaplan, Neil A. Potischman, Sarah K. Solum and Richard D. Truesdell, Jr. July 25, 2018 by renholding

On July 17, 2018, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Automotive Industries Pension Trust Fund v. Toshiba Corp., No. 16-56058 (9th Cir. July 17, 2018), holding that the Supreme Court’s Morrison decision does not preclude purchasers of …

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