Compliance

Federal prosecutors brought criminal charges against SAC Capital on Thursday. Dubbing SAC “a veritable magnet of market cheaters,” authorities argued that the company allowed a “systematic” insider trading scheme to play out between 1999 to 2010. It is deemed that the scheme generated profits for the firm in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Former UBS AG executive Peter Ghavami was sentenced to 18 months in prison for rigging what should have been competitive bids to handle municipal-bond investment deals.

A Texas man has been accused by regulators of running a Ponzi scheme involving the digital currency Bitcoin. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Trendon Shavers with defrauding investors of nearly $150,000 worth of bitcoins through Bitcoin Savings and Trust, an online investment scheme he ran, and of making false claims while soliciting investments online in 2011 and 2012.

Ex-UBS AG Managing Director Peter Ghavami and two former colleagues convicted of rigging municipal bond investment deals may be sentenced to less prison time than the government is seeking, a federal judge said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Trendon Shavers with defrauding investors of nearly $150,000 worth of bitcoins through Bitcoin Savings and Trust, an online investment scheme he ran, and of making false claims while soliciting investments online in 2011 and 2012.

Robert Khuzami, the former head of enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is joining Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

Increased demand for due diligence on hedge funds -- if not for the funds themselves -- may be the initial impact of the SEC's recent ruling lifting an 80-year-old ban on advertising for private offerings.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced it has charged hedge fund advisor Steven Cohen with failure to supervise two senior employees. The charges also included failing to prevent the duo from insider trading.

Hedge fund managers now no longer have to hide behind their websites because they are free to advertise openly to investors who meet their investment requirements courtesy of President Obama's JOBS Act.

One service provider is looking to take advantage of the migration of hedge funds into the mutual funds space by offering its hedge fund clients its Investment Company Compliance Services offering.

The Senate Banking Committee unanimously agreed to recommend the full Senate confirm Kara Stein and Michael Piwowar as Securities and Exchange Commission members and approve chairman Mary Jo White to serve a full term.

Readers reacted loudly to news that the CFP Board sanctioned former chairman, Alan Goldfarb for selecting “fee only” and, later, “salary” to describe his income on a form on the FPA website.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat credited with conceiving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said confirmation of a director for the agency is both a major step and a call to vigilance.

The Senate Banking Committee will meet Thursday to vote on whether to recommend the Senate confirm two nominees to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Kenneth R. Lench, the chief of the structured and new products unit at the SEC’s division of enforcement, is leaving at the end of the month.

Hedge funds have beaten the FDIC in a series of legal disputes over the assets of bankrupt holding companies, exposing a serious flaw in the regulator's system for recovering value from failed institutions.

A Financial Industry Regulatory hearing panel has suspended former broker Anthony Grey for two years, fined him $30,000, and ordered him to disgorge $16,000 in ill-gotten gains for routing muni bond trades through his personal accounts before selling them, through his firm, to retail customers at excessive markups.

Four key senators introduced a bill Thursday that would effectively reinstate a Depression-era law that separated the investment and commercial sides of U.S. banks.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her colleagues are working to drum up support for a new bipartisan bill that would bring back a Depression-era law separating commercial and investment banks.

The industry group plans to unveil recommendations for restoring confidence in the markets at its annual conference scheduled for November.