BrokeAndBroker.com Blog by Bill Singer Esq WEEK IN REVIEW

May 15, 2021

http://www.brokeandbroker.com/5848/sztrom-sec-ria/
The SEC filed a Complaint in January 2021 alleging Investment Advisers Act fraud. About two months later, the Defendants moved to dismiss. It must have been quite the challenge for SEC staff to draft a Complaint in the midst of the Covid pandemic; and, similarly, it likely posed one hell of a challenge for Defendants to put together their Motion to Dismiss. Everyone gets an "A" for effort. Efforts aside, the federal Court sided with the SEC and the case moves forward.

http://www.brokeandbroker.com/5846/sec-whistlblowers-pie/
We got one pie. We got two hungry whistleblowers eager to cut into that pie. But they have to wait. The SEC's Claims Review Staff ("CRS") needs to issue the all important Preliminary Determination. Oh my . . . CRS recommended that Claimant 1 be awarded $18 million and Claimant 2, $4 million. And now we got a battle over how the SEC sliced the pie!

http://www.brokeandbroker.com//5845/blackbook-finra-dnj/
When we were kids, we were warned that we would drown if we went back into the water so much as a minute before the magical "one hour." Then there was that story about how swallowed gum stayed in your stomach for seven years. Not six years. Not eight years. But seven. And, of course, someone knew someone who knew a kid who had a brother who swallowed gum on a dare and it didn't come out for . . . you got it . . . seven years. In a recent federal case, we got seven years between a FINRA regulatory settlement and a federal court's opinion that what was agreed to all those years ago is going to stay on the books. Which proved a hard wad of gum for the respondents to swallow. 

http://www.brokeandbroker.com/5844/irreparable-harm-tro/
As readers of the BrokeAndBroker.com Blog know, I am a critic of inarticulate legal writing -- be that a pleading, motion papers, awards, opinions, orders, or any number of press releases. In a recent ruling on a motion before the District of Connecticut, Senior District Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr. shows how it should be done -- he pens an enchanting, entertaining, comprehensive, and superbly edited opinion.