FinCEN Advisory Alerts Financial Sector to Fentanyl Trafficking schemes Washington – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced coordinated actions to bring additional financial pressure upon those…

Luke Hillier, the majority owner and former Chief Executive Officer of Virginia-based defense contractor ADS, Inc., has agreed to pay the United States $20 million to settle allegations that he violated the False Claims Act by fraudulently obtaining federal set-aside…

The Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) today approved an interagency final rule to simplify and tailor requirements relating to Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly known as the…

One defendant ordered to pay more than $11 million as part of settlement Additional defendants involved with student loan debt relief schemes have been permanently banned from selling debt relief services pursuant to settlements with the Federal Trade Commission. The…

The Federal Trade Commission is urging consumers affected by Equifax’s 2017 data breach to consider signing up for the free credit monitoring offered as part of the settlement. A new FTC blog post notes that because of high interest in…

by Seena Gressin Attorney, Division of Consumer and Business Education If you needed yet another nudge to start keeping an eye on your credit report to protect against identity theft, Capital One has delivered it with its announcement that a…

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced an emergency action charging two individuals with running a pump and dump scheme targeting retail investors. The SEC also obtained an emergency court order freezing the defendants' assets. According to the SEC's complaint,…

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged AR Capital LLC, its founder Nicholas S. Schorsch, and its former CFO Brian Block with wrongfully obtaining millions of dollars in connection with two separate mergers between real estate investment trusts (REITs) that…

The Securities and Exchange Commission has instituted two related enforcement actions against Nomura Securities International Inc., which has agreed to repay approximately $25 million to customers for its failure to adequately supervise traders in mortgage-backed securities. The SEC orders find…

State Street Bank and Trust Company has agreed to pay over $88 million to settle charges for overcharging mutual funds and other registered investment company clients for expenses related to the firm's custody of client assets. The overcharges included a…

Canon and Toshiba failed to observe the required waiting period in Canon’s $6.1 billion acquisition of Toshiba’s Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation Canon Inc. and Toshiba Corporation have agreed to settle federal charges that the companies violated the premerger notification and…

PGPIC Awards IRGC Construction Firm Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Contracts WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action today against Iran’s largest and most profitable petrochemical holding group, Persian Gulf…