- “The San Francisco, CA-based law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe has agreed to a $8 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit filed in response to a 2023 cyberattack and data breach.”
- “In March 2023, the law firm that specializes in helping companies that have experienced security breaches suffered one of its own. On March 13, 2023, hackers were discovered to have gained access to its network, with the forensic investigation revealing they had access for around two weeks between February 28 and March 13, 2023, before the intrusion was detected.”
- “The personal and protected health information of 637,620 individuals was compromised; however, it took months to determine how many individuals had been affected with the last batch of notification letters mailed to affected individuals in January 2024. The affected individuals were offered 2 years of complimentary credit monitoring services.”
- “A lawsuit was filed against Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California shortly after the announcement about the breach. The lawsuit made several allegations, including the failure to secure its systems, the failure to prevent and stop the breach, the failure to detect the breach in a timely manner, and the failure to disclose material facts that adequate system security measures were not in place to prevent data breaches. The lawsuit also alleged Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe did not honor repeated promises and representations to protect the information of the breach victims and failed to provide timely notifications. Several other lawsuits were filed over the breach that made similar claims, and they were consolidated into a single action – In re Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP Data Breach Litig.”
- “The proposed settlement was deemed to be reasonable and fair by class counsel and has received preliminary approval from the court. Under the terms of the settlement, class counsel may claim up to 25% of the settlement amount and after costs of up to $50,000 and $2,500 service awards for the lead plaintiffs have been deducted, the remainder of the settlement will cover claims from individuals affected by the data breach.”
“FINRA orders Barclays unit to pay $700K over conflicts of interest” —
- “A Barclays unit agreed to pay $700,000 to settle allegations levied by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) that its research analysts violated conflict-of-interest rules and the firm failed to sufficiently supervise their trades.”
- “Barclays failed to identify and disclose 99 instances of its research analysts holding stock in a company in which they published a report and three instances of research analysts trading in their brokerage accounts in a manner inconsistent with published recommendations, FINRA alleged.”
- “From January 2016 to August 2019, the firm did not establish or maintain a supervisory system to detect such violations of FINRA’s conflict-of-interest rules, per the order.”
- “The firm’s written supervisory procedures ‘did not include a process for the review of securities transactions in equity research analysts’ external managed accounts reasonably designed to identify potential violations of securities laws, including potential market manipulation and insider trading,’ the order stated.”
- “From at least April 2021 through March 2022, the firm failed to obtain client data to ‘determine whether it needed to disclose specified conflicts of interest in its research reports,’ per the order. As a result, the firm failed to disclose at least 803 reports covering 22 issuers that an affiliate ‘received non-investment banking related compensation from the issuer within the prior 12 months,’ the order stated.”
SRA Webinar (13 May 2024): “Your anti-money laundering questions answered” —
- “We have a whole host of questions and answers about common money-laundering issues in the AML section of our website, while our other webinars have attracted frequently occurring queries from the profession. From high-level queries about what legal services fall within the scope of money laundering, to drilling down into how far to go with client due diligence, there’s always lots to learn. You can also submit your own queries to our expert panel when you book your place or live during the webinar.”
- “By signing up for this free webinar, you will:
- Hear from members our expert anti-money laundering team
- Find out about some of the most frequently-asked questions – and their answers!
- Get the chance to put your own questions to the panel”
- “All of this should help you develop your existing AML policies, controls and procedures and keep criminal money out of legal services.”