Securities Law

Mark Cuban Wants to Pay Government Attorneys to Get Off Their Butts

By

I’d love for Mark Cuban to own my basketball team. He’s a self-made billionaire who focuses on the fans and (for all the bluster) leaves the basketball decisions to basketball people. Compare that to current Knicks Owner James Dolan — a man living off of his daddy’s success, who thinks he’s smarter than he really is, who has run the once-proud Knicks franchise into the ground, and who may be in romantic love with Isiah Thomas. You’d take Cuban any day of the week over little Jimmy.

You’d probably take Cuban as a client as well. Stephen Best, the Dewey & LeBoeuf attorney currently representing Cuban in his SEC insider trading case, seems to be happy with his client. And we haven’t even seen his legal fees.

But if you are one of Cuban’s adversaries, it must be brutal. To paraphrase Rory Breaker, if the milk’s sour, Mark Cuban ain’t the kind of pussy to drink it. NBA referees know that. And SEC attorneys are about to learn the same lesson…

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Mark Cuban Wants to Pay Government Attorneys to Get Off Their Butts”

45 Comments

Colorado Partner Wants To Expose Porn Lovers at the SEC

By

A number of attorneys at the SEC were not getting enough stimulation from their securities work, so they turned to porn. Lots and lots of porn — one attorney ran out of room on his computer and had to start storing his porn on CDs and DVDs in boxes in his office, according to the Inspector General’s report earlier this year.

Who were these attorneys who, for so many years, were more focused on wanking it than spanking the Madoffs? We don’t know. The 33 XXX-site-surfing SEC employees — mostly accountants and attorneys — were identified only by their work titles in the Inspector General report and not by name.

According to the Denver Post, the SEC turned down FOIA requests from both the Washington Times and Colorado attorney Kevin Evans, seeking the names of employees involved in the scandal. From the Denver Post:

[T]he SEC maintains in court records that the request for employee names and discipline is an invasion of privacy.

“Public identification of the Commission staff could conceivably subject them to harassment and annoyance of the conduct of their official duties and in their private lives,” a government legal adviser wrote in a denial of Evans’ FOIA request.

Evans is a former partner at Hogan & Hartson and Schiff Hardin, and is now a name partner at his own firm. And he was not content to have his FOIA turned down. He sued the SEC last month, and will let the courts decide if this is a true invasion of privacy.

His justification: how would your clients feel if you were billing them for “rubbing the redweld” while looking at www.ladyboyjuice.com?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Colorado Partner Wants To Expose Porn Lovers at the SEC”

13 Comments

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Rakoff?

By

Judge Jed Rakoff: A bank's nightmare?

Since Judge Denny Chin is moving on up to the Second Circuit, the S.D.N.Y. cases pending before him have to be redistributed. Lawyers for Bank of America, which has 15 civil shareholder lawsuits on Chin’s docket, sent the chief judge a letter requesting that the cases be reassigned using a lottery system. As we mentioned in Morning Docket, Cleary Gottlieb, Davis Polk, and Wachtell Lipton all signed the letter.

Why did they need to send this special letter? Because they were scared of B of A landing again in the lap of Judge Jed Rakoff, says the Wall Street Journal:

Judge Rakoff disappointed bank executives last year when he rejected a $30 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had charged the bank with misleading shareholders about bonuses paid prior to the Merrill merger. The New York judge reluctantly approved a new $150 million agreement in February but called it “half-baked justice at best.”

One of the pending shareholder cases accuses the bank of failing to “disclose billions in Merrill losses before shareholders approved the deal in December 2008.”

Apparently, the lawyers debated whether or not to name Judge Rakoff in their letter, thus making it clear that he was the particular judge they hoped to avoid. They ultimately decided to name names.

They were successful in steering their cases clear of Rakoff, though the chief judge claims the letter wasn’t a factor in her decision to assign the cases to Judge Kevin Castel (aka the John Gotti judge). How did she decide?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Rakoff?”

9 Comments

‘Run, Forrest, Run!’ (And then go get a J.D.)

By

scott black child marathon runner.jpgThe New York City marathon happens this Sunday. We know many lawyers who will be running it, and we wish them luck.

The marathon did not impose a minimum age until 1981 (16, raised to 18 in 1988). Pegged to the upcoming marathon, the New York Times had a fascinating article earlier this week about child marathoners, focusing on Wesley Paul, Scott Black (pictured), and Howie Breinan:

The adventures of Paul, Black and Breinan offer a glimpse into a forgotten aspect of the running boom of the late 1970s. Preternaturally self-disciplined, they were among about 75 children (ages 8 to 13) who tackled the early years of the New York City Marathon in a time of novelty and naïveté….

With no conclusive study, physicians still debate risks to children who compete in marathons, like muscular-skeletal injuries, stunted growth, burnout, parental pressures and the ability to handle heat stress.

Another risk: going on to become a securities lawyer. Two out of the three child marathoners profiled by the Times now practice in that field.

Scott Black is a senior trial lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission in New York (after several years at Wachtell Lipton, where he worked with Lat on a number of cases). Wesley Paul is a partner at Michelman & Robinson, where he practices corporate and securities law.

We touched base with Black and Paul to ask about possible connections between their running and legal careers. Read more, after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “‘Run, Forrest, Run!’ (And then go get a J.D.)”

34 Comments

Morning Docket 02.24.09

By

cross.jpg

* SCOTUS will look at the separation of church and state when they decide whether “a cross to honor fallen soldiers can stand in a national preserve in California.” [The Los Angeles Times]

* Lawyers say Madoff must have had help with his Ponzi scheme. [Bloomberg]

* Attorney General Eric Holder visited Guantanamo yesterday to see what is needed to close the prison. [The Associated Press]

* Meanwhile, a Pentagon official who inspected Guantanamo at Obama’s request is under fire from human rights activists for filing a report (which declares Gitmo humane) that is little more than good public relations for the administration. [The New York Times]

* What do you do when your boss gets indicted for securities fraud? You get another job. A team of seven bankruptcy lawyers left Dreier LLP for Epstein Becker Green. [EBG]

* A federal judge encouraged the Obama administration to decide whether to keep pursuing a case against 11 Vietnam War Veterans accused of trying to overthrow Laos’s communist government. [The Associated Press]

* Judge says: UBS must respond to the U.S. lawsuit seeking disclosure of 52,000 names of people who allegedly used Swiss accounts for tax evasion. [Bloomberg]

8 Comments
Page 4 of 41234