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Legal & Business Issues Facing Entrepreneurs and Investors

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By: Farrell Fritz, P.C.

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Alon Y. Kapen
Bernadette T. Kasnicki
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Latest from New York Venture Hub

On November 27, 2018, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California denied the Securities and Exchange Commission’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block an initial coin offering, finding the Commission did not meet its burden of showing the digital token in question was a security. Although this appears to be the first Federal decision against the Commission on the question of whether a token is a security under the Howey…
If you were looking for a safe blockchain investment and had the chance to invest in the “first licensed and regulated tokenized cryptocurrency exchange and index fund based in the U.S.” and audited by a Big 4 accounting firm, you might do it, right? One problem: turns out it’s not licensed, regulated or audited. On October 11, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced it had obtained an emergency court order halting Blockvest, LLC’s initial…
Private companies in the gig economy like Uber and Airbnb would love to issue compensatory equity to their platform participants, just like they’re able to do with their employees. The problem is that the exemption from registration for compensatory issuances only covers issuances to employees and consultants of the issuer.  Last July, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission published a concept release seeking comment on whether the exemption should be extended to equity issued to participants…
If you’re thinking of airdropping free tokens or implementing a cryptocurrency bounty program, be careful. The Securities and Exchange Commission just issued a cease and desist order (the “Order”) with respect to an initial coin offering, finding the issuance of “free” tokens through a related bounty program in exchange for online promotional services constituted an unregistered sale of securities and thus a violation of the registration provisions of the federal securities laws. Although courts and…
It’s not often that the House of Representatives votes nearly unanimously on anything noteworthy these days, but that’s exactly what the House did on July 17 in voting 406-4 for the “JOBS and Investor Confidence Act of 2018”, also known on the street as “JOBS Act 3.0”, which is the latest iteration of the effort to improve on the capital markets reform initiative started in the original JOBS Act of 2012. JOBS Act 3.0 consists…
On June 28, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a release amending the definition of “smaller reporting company” (“SRC”) to expand the number of reporting companies eligible for relaxed or scaled disclosure. The change is estimated to benefit nearly 1,000 additional small public companies currently outside the SRC definition. But equally noteworthy in the SRC release is that the Commission staff has been directed, and has begun, to formulate recommendations to the Commission for…
“Can a digital asset that was originally offered in a securities offering ever be later sold in a manner that does not constitute an offering of a security?” Such was the question posed by William Hinman, Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance, in his speech at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit: Crypto event in San Francisco on June 14. Hinman’s answer: a qualified “yes” where there is no longer…
Buried in new legislation mainly intended to ease Dodd-Frank restrictions on small banks is an expansion of Regulation A eligibility to include SEC reporting companies. Previously, such companies were not eligible. The new access to Regulation A will create a viable mini-public offering pathway for SEC reporting companies, particularly those not eligible for registering securities on the streamlined Form S-3 registration statement. Regulation A is an exemption from registration requirements for offerings of up to $50…
Initial coin offerings so far have gone through two major phases in their brief lifespan. The initial phase flew under the regulatory radar in an explosion of deals that raised billions of dollars seemingly overnight and without either registering the offerings with the SEC or complying with an exemption from registration. The ICO atmosphere changed drastically when the SEC issued its now famous DAO report in July 2017, which together with subsequent speeches, written …
The Wall Street Journal ominously reported on February 28 that the Securities and Exchange Commission recently issued dozens of subpoenas to initial coin offering issuers and their advisors demanding information about the structure of their ICOs. Although the Commission has yet to officially acknowledge them, the subpoenas are consistent with a series of SEC enforcement actions alleging fraud or illegal sale of securities (see, e.g., here and here) and public speeches and statements warning ICO participants about regulatory…