Securities & Capital Markets

On Monday, October 19, I’ll be moderating a panel on Strategic Considerations for Navigating a Dual-track M&A and Initial Public Offering Pathway at the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Annual Conference here in Boston.

On October 13 from 1 – 2:30 pm ET, join Pam Greene and a panel of other experts for a timely webinar covering Regulation A+: Practical Tips and Guidance for Launching a Mini-IPO. Regulation A+ went into effect in June 2015 to allow private US and Canadian based companies to raise equity - up to $20 million under Tier I and up to $50 million under Tier II - from both accredited and nonaccredited investors, subject to certain limitations.

On September 22, 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice’s  Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, Leslie R. Caldwell, spoke at the Global Investigations Review Conference in New York, addressing the recent memo by Deputy Attorney Sally Yates on individual accountability. 

As originally reported on our Privacy & Security Matters blog, Mintz Levin will sponsor a webinar on September 30 at 1:00 p.m. (ET) to address regulatory compliance and risk management aspects of cyber attacks and data breaches at financial institutions and their service providers.

As was recently reported in the New York Times and elsewhere, the Justice Department issued new policies last week that place individual executives as the focus of their prosecution efforts, and encourage companies to cooperate in building a case against those individuals.

A witness testifying under oath before the SEC recently refused to answer any questions directed to him, not because of any privilege, but rather -- as he said, sixty-eight different times -- because he was “scared" and “frightened.”  The SEC subsequently (and successfully) petitioned a Massachusetts federal court for an order compelling the individual to re-appear before the SEC and comply with the subpoena in question. SEC v. Carlos R. Garza, 1:15-mc-91258-RGS (D.Mass.).

Pursuant to Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which added new Section 13(p)(1) to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the SEC promulgated Rule 13p-1 (the “Conflict Minerals Rule”), which required that issuers that manufacture (or contract to manufacture) products in which conflict minerals are “necessary to the functionality or production of the product” are required to disclose whether or not their products contain tin, gold, tantalum, or tungsten mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo (the “DRC”) and nine of its neighboring countries. 

Following up on their discussion last week about the SEC's CitizenVC no action letter, our colleagues Dan DeWolf and Sam Effron have written another alert about the SEC's recently issued compliance and disclosure interpretations relating to private placements under Regulation D. 

On August 5, by a vote of 3-to-2 with the SEC Commissioners voting along party lines, the SEC approved the final rule to implement the requirements of Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act, which instructed the SEC to amend existing rules under Item 402 of Regulation S-K to require public companies to disclose the ratio of their CEO’s annual total compensation to that of the median annual total compensation of all company employees.

Delaware recently enacted new legislation to prohibit stock corporations from adopting fee-shifting bylaws and charter provisions, among other amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law.

If you are a year-end company, today is the end of your second fiscal quarter, which means that it's just about time to calculate your public float to see if your reporting status has changed. Here are a few things to remember.