Return Time.
Back to the office.
Back to school for the kids.
And back to blogging more regularly.
These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention.
In Silicon Valley, Criminal Prosecutors See No Evil
by David Stretifeld
The New York Times
Federal prosecutors in Northern California took on only 57 white-collar crime cases in the 2020 fiscal year, down from 94 in 2019, according to researchers. Although 2021 is likely to show a rebound, the total will still be far below the heyday of prosecutorial action in 1995, when 350 cases were brought.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/technology/in-silicon-valley-criminal-prosecutors-see-no-evil.html
Debevoise & Plimpton on the Latest Round of SEC Cybersecurity Enforcement Actions
By Avi Gesser, James Pastore and Mengyi Xu
The CLS Blue Sky Blog
On August 30, 2021, the SEC filed settled enforcement actions against three groups of broker-dealers and investment advisers for failing to protect confidential customer information in violation of Rule 30(a) of Regulation S-P (the “Safeguards Rule” or “Rule”). One group of the entities was also found to have violated Section 206(4) of the Advisers Act and Rule 206(4)-7, by allegedly providing misleading information in its breach notification to customers. These actions, which were announced just two weeks after the SEC imposed a $1 million civil penalty for an issuer’s allegedly misleading data breach disclosures in connection with a public company’s filings, demonstrate the agency’s increased efforts to enforce its cyber priorities, as we noted in July 2021 with the First American settlement.
https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2021/09/07/debevoise-plimpton-on-the-latest-round-of-sec-cybersecurity-enforcement-actions
Madoff Victims Get Second Crack at Citigroup’s $343 Million
By Bob Van Voris
Bloomberg
The U.S. Court of Appeals in New York on Monday reinstated a suit against Citi by Irving Picard, the trustee charged with recovering money for Madoff’s victims, over funds transferred to the bank. Picard claimed Citi failed to act on red flags concerning Madoff, but a bankruptcy court dismissed the suit, finding the trustee had not shown the bank acted with “willful blindness” to possible fraud.
The appeals court said “willful blindness” was the wrong standard to apply and the burden of proof shouldn’t have been on Picard. The ruling revived similar claims for $213 million from Legacy Capital Ltd., a British Virgin Islands corporation that invested solely with Madoff, and a $6.6 million claim against Khronos LLC, which provided accounting services to Legacy.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-30/madoff-victims-get-second-crack-at-citigroup-s-343-million?
Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible?
By Jon Huang, Claire O’Neill and Hiroko Tabuchi
Illustrations by Eliana Rodgers
The New York Times
[C]onsider this: The process of creating Bitcoin to spend or trade consumes around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, more than is used by Finland, a nation of about 5.5 million.
That usage, which is close to half-a-percent of all the electricity consumed in the world, has increased about tenfold in just the past five years.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/03/climate/bitcoin-carbon-footprint-electricity.html
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