Ontario Securities Commission settles with Canadian ICO consultant, promoter and listing agent

Tweet The Ontario Securities Commission (“OSC“) has entered into a settlement agreement with a Canadian company called CoinLaunch to settle claims that it engaged in the business of trading securities contrary to the Securities Act (Ontario) in respect of two ICOs. Articles about CoinLaunch stated that over $1,050,000,000 was generated on its ICO platforms (see […]

Digital currency exchange CEO who spent customers’ Bitcoin settling with SEC and awaiting criminal sentencing

Tweet Exchange CEO Indicted The CEO of a digital currency exchange who pleaded guilty after being indicted in New York for, inter alia, selling Bitcoin to US residents illegally and then stealing it from them by removing it from the exchange’s pooled wallet, is awaiting sentencing for the criminal proceeding against him, and is also negotiating […]

The Howey Test

Tweet Digital currency issuers often ask about the Howey Test and its applicability to their activities. Here is our summary of the law. In determining whether digital currencies are securities, securities regulators in Canada have expressly stated that they are evaluating digital currencies within the framework of three court decisions that considered the elements of […]

Primer on Beneficial Ownership, Numbered, Shelf and Shell Companies

Tweet Beneficial ownership, shell companies, shelf companies and numbered companies – What’s the Difference? Since the Panama Papers, there seems to be an increasing interest in the concepts of beneficial ownership, numbered companies, shell companies and shelf companies and people often use some of these terms interchangeably but they are not the same things. 1. […]

Record prison sentence imposed on lawyer for insider trading and money laundering

Tweet New York lawyer, Matthew Kluger, was sentenced yesterday in federal court in New Jersey to 12 years in prison for insider trading. His sentence is the longest term ever imposed for that crime in the U.S. Kruger stole undisclosed transactional information on approximately 30 deals when he was a corporate lawyer with several U.S. […]