Dallas Judge Freezes Assets in Fraud Case Involving Sports Stars (Updated)

SEC Fort Worth Regional Director Shamoil Shipchandler unveiled federal charges Tuesday against a former managing director of Dallas-based investment advisory firm RGT Capital Management for “secretly siphoning" $33 million from two Major League Baseball star pitchers and an NFL star quarterback, in order to fund an online ticket service. RGT also filed a federal securities lawsuit against its former partner and the online ticket operations.

June 21, 2016 Mark Curriden

HayBoo and Kirkland Win Billion-Dollar Defense Ruling in False Claims Trial

A federal jury in Dallas late Thursday rejected claims by an internal pharmaceutical industry whistle-blower that giant Abbott Laboratories wrongly induced physicians and hospitals to submit hundreds of millions in falsely coded claims to Medicare.

April 8, 2016 Mark Curriden

Updated – SEC Settles Uni-Pixel’s Investment Fraud Case, Charges Two Former Execs

California-based Uni-Pixel agreed Wednesday to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission $750,000 to resolve allegations that the technology company fraudulently misled investors about its operations. At the same time, the SEC filed charges against two former Uni-Pixel executives for their role in a scheme in which “materially misleading” statements about the production and sales of a touch-screen sensor product were made public.

March 10, 2016 Mark Curriden

Exclusive: Behind the Scenes of the Defense in the BP Criminal Trial

Last Thursday's not guilty verdict against former BP Macondo site leader Robert Kaluza ended a six-year legal battle fought by Houston trial lawyers David Gerger and Shaun Clarke. The pair dismantled the government’s case in every one of the 22 counts of manslaughter and the single count of water pollution against their client Gerger and Clarke spent more than 8,000 hours working on the case, reviewed more than 90 million pages of evidence and did battle over a 164-year-old law. They converted guest rooms on the 21st floor of the Loews Hotel in downtown New Orleans into office space. Their success in this case should be taught in law schools and CLEs.

February 28, 2016 Mark Curriden

DMN: United Development Says Top Officers Got Federal Grand Jury Subpoenas

Embattled residential finance and investment firm United Development Funding says its top officers have been subpoenaed to provide a federal grand jury with documents related to the operation of the company.

February 23, 2016 Mark Curriden

FCPA Blog: Low Oil Prices Hurt FCPA Compliance Efforts

Energy and natural resource executives highlight specific areas of concern in a KPMG International survey.

February 4, 2016 Mark Curriden

Dallas Judge Approves BDO’s $40 million Payment to Stanford Investors

U.S. District Judge David Godbey ruled Wednesday that accounting firm BDO USA’s agreement to pay $40 million to victims in the R. Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme “is a fair settlement amount.”

September 24, 2015 Natalie Posgate

Exclusive: SEC Selects Shamoil Shipchandler to Lead Regional Office

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to announce this week that former East Texas federal prosecutor Shamoil Shipchandler is the agency’s next director of the Texas region, The Texas Lawbook has learned from multiple sources. The article has all the details.

August 17, 2015 Mark Curriden

DMN: SEC Investigates McKinney-based Servergy in Ken Paxton Litigation

A small technology firm in McKinney with 22 employees, Servergy came into public view last week when a Collin County grand jury announced the indictment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton related to a deal he had made to sell the company’s stock. But the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been investigating the company before Paxton's name surfaced. The Dallas Morning News takes an in-depth look at Servergy.

August 11, 2015 Mark Curriden

Legal Experts: Ken Paxton Case will go to Trial

Criminal charges probably should never have been brought against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, but now that they have been, he could be at serious risk of going to prison, according to legal experts following the case. More than a dozen former prosecutors and former judges interviewed by The Texas Lawbook say there is little to no evidence that the charges against Paxton are the result of political motivations and they believe there’s a significant chance that the case will go to trial.

August 10, 2015 Mark Curriden

Inside the Case Against Ken Paxton: The Lawyers

The criminal securities fraud case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is only getting started, but it already features some of the best lawyers in the state. At the same time, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has conducted its own inquiry into Servergy. The two cases have attracted A-list white-collar lawyers, including former federal judge Joe Kendall, Houston criminal defense lawyers Kent Schaffer and Brian Wice, SEC enforcement attorneys Samantha Cox Martin and Matthew Gulde, and securities litigators Jason Lewis and Kit Addleman. We have all the details.

August 2, 2015 Mark Curriden

SEC Interviews Finalists for Fort Worth Director Job

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is in its final stages of searching for a new regional director. The finalists include two current SEC officials, a former federal prosecutor and a corporate general counsel. A selection is expected by the end of August. The two front-runners are SEC Associate Director Marshall Gandy and former federal prosecutor Shamoil Shipchandler, who is now a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani in Dallas. “There are some great candidates on the list – no bad options,” says Xerox Senior VP and Group Counsel Clay Scheitzach.

July 15, 2015 Mark Curriden