By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - A federal judge has affirmed the dismissal of securities fraud claims against former principals of Refco Inc. and the company's auditor, Grant Thornton LLP.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
(CN) - MBIA Insurance doesn't have to link insurance claims paid on mortgage-backed securities to allegedly fraudulent statements made by issuer Countrywide Financial to prove its fraud claims a New York State Supreme Court judge has ruled.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - The Delware Chancery Court refused to dismiss claims that Safety-Kleen called shares at below market value to trick competitor Clean Harbors Inc. after the company acquired Safety-Kleen stock.
By MATT REYNOLDS
DELAWARE (CN) - The Delaware Supreme Court reversed a ruling in favor of Athenian Venture Partners in a contract dispute with GMG Capital Investments LLC over the wording of an agreement involving a $6 million note after a stock purchase.
By MATT REYNOLDS
DELAWARE (CN) - The Delaware Supreme Court released a letter detailing sexual harassment allegations against former HP chairman Mark Hurd, ruling that it does not violate his privacy rights.
By RYAN ABBOTT
WASHINGTON (CN) - A federal judge has refused to dismiss Security and Exchange Commission claims that the CEO of Koch Poultry helped mislead auditors about $856 million worth of income, a federal judge ruled.
By NICKEESHA SWABY
(CN) - The Delaware Supreme Court has determined that Sagarra Inversiones S.L. cannot sue on behalf of the subsidiary of a Spain-based company in which it holds minority ownership.
By CHLOEE GREAVES
(CN) - A guaranty insurance company's securities fraud claims against J.P. Morgan have been given a second chance after the New York Court of Appeals found that the claims are not preempted by the Martin Act.
By CHLOEE GREAVES
(CN) - A "significant stockholder" in a pink sheets holding company failed to back up its breach of fiduciary duty claims against the father and sons who run the business, Vice Chancellor John Noble ruled, finding that the shareholder didn't provide proof to support its motion to amend the court's prior dismissal order.
By CHLOEE GREAVES
(CN) - A brother got his fair share - 1 percent - from the $60 million sale of a family-owned printing company in Maine, the Massachusetts Court of Appeals ruled, finding that the sibling failed to back up his claim that his stake was worth $3 million.
By DARRYL GREER
(CN) - Canada's Supreme Court unanimously dashed the Canadian government's plan to create a national securities regulator, finding that securities regulation is a provincial responsibility under the country's constitution.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - The New York Supreme Court Appellate Division has thrown out claims that investment bank Goldman Sachs underpriced an eToys Initial Public Offering of more than 9 million shares of stock.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - U.S. District Court in Manhattan threw-out the SEC's proposed $285 million settlement against Citigroup, finding it "neither fair, nor adequate, nor in the public interest," and ordered the parties to go to trial.
By CHLOEE GREAVES
(CN) - Investors in a Princeton, N.J.-based venture fund can pursue their claims against top company executives as a class, Vice Chancellor Leo Strine Jr. ruled, after the defendants barely put up a fight against the certification.
By CHLOEE GREAVES
(CN) - An investor's claim that Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. manipulated auction rate securities has bit the dust, the 2nd Circuit ruled, finding that the financial firm's announcement of its auction practices before the $330 billion market collapsed precludes the claim.
By ADAM KLASFELD
MANHATTAN (CN) - Real estate developer Sheldon H. Solow, known for his iconic Manhattan tower at 9 W. 57th St., must go back to the drawing board if he wants to sue Citigroup and its CEO Vikram Pandit for allegedly lying about liquidity during the 2008 financial collapse, a federal judge ruled.
By CHLOEE GREAVES
(CN) - The former president of an energy company and five other investors are legally bound to stock purchase agreements they signed but did not read, the New York Appellate Division ruled.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - The 9th Circuit Appeals Court ruled that a California district court judge properly certified a class of shareholders who say they were damaged after Amgen failed to disclose safety concerns related to two of its anemia products.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - The Delaware Chancery Court ruled that holders of common stock in Wesco Financial Corp. are not entitled to appraisal rights as part of a triangular merger agreement between Wesco, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and a Berkshire acquisition subsidiary.
By ADAM KLASFELD
MANHATTAN (CN) - With obvious relish, a federal judge held an SEC attorney's feet to the fire for proposing a settlement with Citigroup that represents a fraction of an alleged $600 million mortgage fraud and does not require the bank to admit wrongdoing. Citigroup sold $1 billion in mortgage-backed CDOs, which a Citigroup trader called "a collection of dogsh!t," while secretly shorting the securities.
By NICKEESHA SWABY
(CN) - MoneyGram is seeking to recover more than $260 million in losses from a group of investment banks that allegedly sold fraudulent collateralized debt obligations and residential mortgage backed securities between 2005 and 2007.
By NICKEESHA SWABY
(CN) - CPI Corp. is faces a securities class action in the U.S.D.C. Eastern District of Missouri from investors claiming the company sold shares at artificially inflated prices from April 20, 2010 to Dec. 21, 2011.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
(CN) - Shareholders of Inhibitex are being shoved out of the company just as they "were looking forward to reaping the benefits" of the successful development of its hepatitis C anti-viral drug.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
(CN) - French environmental services firm Veolia Environment S.A. inflated its earnings using funky accounting according to a shareholder class action filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
By PHILIP A. JANQUART
(CN) - Netflix Inc. shareholders filed a class action against the streaming television and movie company over the company allegedly misleading investors about its financial status, resulting in artificially inflated stock prices that eventually plummeted by 73 percent.
By PHILIP A. JANQUART
(CN) - Eaton Corporation faces a shareholder derivative suit for allegedly conspiring with manufacturers to create a monopoly on the heavy truck transmission market, exposing the firm to up to $800 million in damages on top of potential awards from additional liability suits.
By PHILIP A. JANQUART
(CN) - Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, the largest pension fund in the Netherlands and among three of the largest in the world sued Credit Suisse Group AG for allegedly misrepresenting the risk associated with the purchase of residential mortgage backed securities.
By NICKEESHA SWABY
(CN) - A shareholder of cloud-based business execution software provider SuccessFactors Inc. says a $3.4 billion purchase offer from SAP America Inc. is inadequate.
By NICKEESHA SWABY
(CN) - A shareholder claims in Delaware Chancery Court that the $2.7 billion buyout of Delphi Financial Group Inc. by Tokio Marine Holdings Inc. will give Delphi's CEO and other officers an unfairly lucrative advantage while shafting shareholders.
By MATT REYNOLDS
DALLAS (CN) - Tribune Co. filed another lawsuit over the media company's 2007 leveraged buyout, claiming the "reckless" deal fraudulently "lined the pockets of Tribune former shareholders with $8.3 billion of cash at the expense of Tribune's creditors, and precipitated Tribune's careen into bankruptcy shortly thereafter."
By CAMERON LANGFORD
HOUSTON (CN) - Dozens of investors who say they were fleeced by Allen Stanford's $7 billion Ponzi scheme claim a Proskauer Rose attorney aided and abetted the fraud by "obstructing an SEC investigation" of Stanford's operations.
By ERIKA CARROLL
(CN) - A shareholder derivative against IT consulting firm Computer Sciences Corp. and its top brass accuses the company of corporate waste and misleading investors after a series of accounting problems and customer delays.
By NICKEESHA SWABY
(CN) - A shareholder derivative accuses directors of California-based network technology company Juniper Networks of violating federal securities laws by concealing "harsh truths" from the investing public.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - Two investment funds claim that Deutsche Bank Securities reneged on a "binding commitment" to purchase $1.6 billion in bankruptcy claims, for money lost to Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
By CHLOEE GREAVES
(CN) - Shareholders sued ConocoPhillips for allegedly duping them into approving a plan to pay its top executives more than a billion dollars in bonuses and stock incentives, despite the fact that it could cost the energy company millions of dollars in unnecessary tax liabilities.
By NICKEESHA SWABY
(CN) - Novellus Systems Inc. faces a class action for entering into an allegedly unfair $3.3 billion all-stock transaction with Lam Research Corp.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - Three purchasers of residential mortgage-backed securities want to rescind their acquisitions from RBS Securities Inc., claiming the company misrepresented the credit quality of the investments.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - The SEC sued seven Siemens SA executives for allegedly taking part in bribery scheme that spanned the better part of a decade and involved the payment of millions of dollars to secure a $1 billion contract to produce national ID cards in Argentina.
By NICK DIVITO
(CN) - Former Notre Dame football player Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger - the subject of the 1993 underdog movie "Rudy" - created a sports drink company as a shell for a "classic pump-and-dump scheme" that bilked investors for more than $11 million, the SEC says.
WASHINGTON (CN) - The SEC today charged six former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with securities fraud, claiming they knew and approved of misleading statements claiming the companies had minimal holdings of higher-risk mortgage loans, including subprime loans.
By ERIKA CARROLL
(CN) - Yahoo and its board of directors face a class action for allegedly instituting policies making acquisitions by outside firms almost impossible.
By NICKEESHA SWABY
(CN) - An investor of Career Education Corp. (CEC) is suing the for-profit college for overstating the post-graduate rate of employment, putting the school at risk of losing federal tuition funding.
By MATT REYNOLDS
(CN) - A class of shareholders wants to put the brakes on Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.'s proposed $750 million takeover of Harleysville Mutual Insurance Co., which it says is unfair.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
(CN) - Executives at CooperVision, the third largest manufacturer of soft-contact lenses in the world, raised the market guidance on earnings for the company's stock even though they knew customers were suffering from torn corneas and other eye problems caused by manufacturing glitches at two recently off-shored facilities, according to a class action filed in federal court in California.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - Companies settling civil fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission will no longer be able to "neither admit nor deny" the fraud if they have admitted to, or been convicted of fraud in a parallel criminal proceeding.
WASHINGTON (CN) - A plastics industry executive accused of lying in SEC filings about his ownership of Musicland Stores Corp. stock, and a trust he controlled, were ordered to pay $49.5 million, the SEC said.
By DAVID LEE
DALLAS (CN) - The former CEO of AmeriFirst Funding Corp. and Amerifirst Acceptance Corp. was convicted of defrauding hundreds of retirees in a $50 million securities scheme and is facing a long stretch in prison.
LOS ANGELES (CN) - Bank of America and Countrywide Financial will pay $335 million to resolve the Justice Department's complaint that Countrywide discriminated against minority homebuyers during the housing boom.
By DAVID LEE
(CN) - The principal and co-owner of a North Carolina investment management company pleaded guilty Thursday in a $3.2 million commodities trading scheme, federal prosecutors said.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
(CN)- U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff "committed legal error" when he rejected a proposed $285 million settlement agreement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Citigroup over toxic mortgage backed assets according to statement by the SEC.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - The newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission agreed to coordinate their efforts to avoid redundant regulation.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
(CN) - The head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced major regulatory reforms at his agency after a year of stock market scandals in China, according to press reports.
By PHILIP A. JANQUART
(CN) - The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is claiming significant achievements in 2011, despite a recent court ruling that stymies its ability to enforce fines, as well as fall-out surrounding allegations that it doctored reports it made to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - U.S. financial regulators have extended the public comment period on the so-called 'Volcker Rule' - a proposal to limit the ability of commercial banks to trade on their own behalf using their depositor's money - until Feb. 13, 2012.
WASHINGTON (CN) - Three financial agencies plan to change market risk capital rules to add new ways to calculate specific risk capital requirements for debt and securitization positions, without relying on credit ratings.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation plans to change the rating method savings and loan associations use to determine if a corporate debt security is investment grade.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - Bank holding companies with more than $50 billion in assets will have to submit annual capital plans to the Federal Reserve and notify the regulator before making any major capital disbursements such as stock-buy backs or dividend payments, under new rules adopted by the Fed's Board of Governors.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is asking for comments on alternatives to the use of external credit ratings in regulations that require banks to determine if a security is "investment grade," and in other areas in which banks must make risk assessments.
Federal agencies must replace the use of credit rat
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - Investment advisers managing at least $150 million in private fund assets will have to report fund information to the Financial Stability Oversight Board, according to new rules adopted by two financial agencies.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to require dealers of and major participants in securities-based swap transactions to register online with the commission, as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and other government enterprises that provide financing for the residential mortgage market must adopt anti-money laundering precautions, according to new rules proposed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
By TRAVIS SANFORD
WASHINGTON (CN) - At its fifth open meeting to consider regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a divided Commodity Futures Trading Commission adopted two new sets of regulations to limit speculation on futures trading and increase the agency's oversight on derivatives clearing organizations.