Regulatory and Securities Enforcement Matters
Federal regulatory agencies (SEC, CFTC, IRS, FDIC, Congressional committees, agency Inspectors General, etc.) and their state counterparts increasingly are given expanded powers that encourage expansive government investigations and enforcement actions. Businesses and individuals confronted by such agencies turn to Stetler, Duffy & Rotert, Ltd. to assure that they respond accurately and carefully to requests for information and to preserve important investment and licensing interests.
REPRESENTATIVE CASES
The SEC initiated an investigation of ConAgra Foods, Inc. and several of its senior executives regarding ConAgra’s allegedly improper accounting of hundreds of millions of dollars in reserves. We successfully defended the highest-ranking executive named in that investigation, resulting in a simple cease and desist order.
Numerous executives, employees and board members of publicly-traded companies engage SDR for help in connection with SEC investigations of insider trading allegations and other violations of the federal securities laws. SDR clients are associated with America’s leading corporations, including PepsiCo, R.R. Donnelly, Credit Suisse First Boston, Bear Stearns, Sabratek, AllState, Enron Energy Corporation, and Anicom.
With the banking and liquidity crisis still engulfing our economy, Stetler, Duffy & Rotert, Ltd. represents senior officers and directors of banks and other financial institutions in responding to investigations and enforcement actions brought by banking regulators, such as the FDIC, OCC and OTS. In just one example, SDR represented the CFO of a multi-billion dollar Chicago-area bank in connection with allegations concerning the overvaluation of the bank’s real estate loan portfolio. In another instance, SDR represented executives of Washington Mutual (WaMu) in connection with the Senate investigation concerning WaMu’s collapse and the role of mortgage-backed securities in the collapse of the banking sector in general.
SDR represents numerous executives, employees and directors in civil class action securities litigation brought in the wake of accounting scandals and/or bankruptcies of the public companies for which they worked.
Private investment funds, and particularly hedge funds, have garnered heightened scrutiny from federal regulators in recent years. SDR lawyers frequently are called on to respond to aggressive enforcement actions, including injunctions and restraints on financial transactions, and we have counseled several principals of investment pools and private placement funds during SEC and state enforcement litigation.