Akerman LLP has announced the launch of a national Fraud & Recovery Practice Group, resulting in what it calls one of the most comprehensive, multidisciplinary legal teams devoted exclusively to fraud and recovery to be established by a national law firm.

In a release, the firm said the new team leverages the combined strengths of lawyers from the firm’s litigation, healthcare, bankruptcy, and data law practices, including a formidable group of trial and appellate lawyers with substantial experience litigating fraud cases in state and federal courts throughout the United States.

“Together the group provides comprehensive fraud management services for large insurance companies and self-insured retailers, including detection, investigation, and litigation of complex schemes and unfair and deceptive practices.” the release says. “The team also handles corporate theft, and recovery after data breach, with a focus on financial losses, and has particular experience in all aspects of liquidating Ponzi schemes.”

The group is led by co-chairs David I. Spector, who has reshaped case law in affirmative fraud investigation and litigation, and Michael I. Goldberg, who is qualified as an expert witness on Ponzi schemes and has liquidated some of the largest recoveries in U.S. history.

Read the complete announcement.

National law firm Dykema has announced the addition of Elizabeth Khalil to its Government Policy & Practice Group in the firm’s Chicago office. Khalil will also spend time in the Washington, D.C., office, as well as in the firm’s Michigan and Texas offices.

Prior to joining Dykema, she served as Acting Special Assistant to Mark Pearce, Director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)’s Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection (DCP).

In her previous role, Khalil acted as a key advisor on a number of special projects and initiatives and served as a liaison within DCP, across the FDIC, and with external units. She also served as Senior Compliance Policy Analyst, where she represented the FDIC and DCP in interactions with federal and state regulators and a variety of other stakeholders, such as the financial services industry, consumer advocates, the public and the press. A significant part of her work related to community banking, including providing technical assistance and addressing issues of interest to community banks. She worked on projects with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including serving as chair of the interagency working group that produced the first social media-focused compliance risk management guidance issued to the banking industry.

She has experience in compliance law, regulations and policies relating to both banking and non-banking entities, including the examination and enforcement processes. She focuses on emerging compliance issues, particularly those related to technology and new uses of consumer information, as well as consumer lending and deposit issues and rules issued pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act. Her work also focuses on issues involving mobile financial services and payment systems, including compliance issues relating to advertising, disclosures, and privacy and data security.

“Elizabeth’s insight and experience with government policy and financial matters will be an immediate asset to our clients since the nature of her practice is so extensive and cross-functional,” said Ed Weil, Director of Dykema’s Financial Industry Group. “I am delighted that she is joining the firm and am positive she will provide our clients with outstanding service.”

Prior to her time with the FDIC, Khalil was a Senior Associate at Hogan Lovells. She also previously served as a senior attorney in the Community and Consumer Law division of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. She is a frequent author and lecturer, and served as co-author and co-editor of the PLI Financial Institutions Answer Book. She received a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.S., cum laude, from Georgetown University.

Blockchain technology has the potential to drastically change the way business is done, mainly in accounting and contracts, reports Inside Bitcoins.

“Large businesses make contracts on a daily basis. Contract law is a wide field of study and essential to understanding how to run a successful business. What happens if the other party breaches a contract? Does a contract need to be in writing to be legally binding? These are things business owners and decision makers need to know. Smart assets are not widely used in modern business, but the benefits of integrating them greatly exceed the low cost of implementing them,” according to the article.

Businesses can create and complete contracts that are stored on the public ledger permanently, it says.

Read the article.

Gritstone Oncology, a cancer immunotherapy company developing next-generation, personalized cancer therapeutics, has announced a Series A financing of $102 million. The financing will support discovery and development of novel tumor-specific neo-antigen (TSNA) based immunotherapies, with an initial focus on lung cancer, the company said in a release.

Latham & Watkins LLP advised Gritstone Oncology in its formation and the Series A financing with a corporate team led from the firm’s Silicon Valley office by partners Alan Mendelson and Brian Cuneo, with associates Alexander White and Kevin Tsai.

The financing was co-led by biotechnology investors Versant Ventures and The Column Group, with Clarus Ventures alongside. Other investors include Frazier Healthcare Partners, Redmile Group, Casdin Capital, and Transformational Healthcare Opportunity, a special-purpose vehicle for private investors.

“We are honored that this discerning group of investors recognized the tremendous potential that exists both in our approach and our team,” said Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D., Gritstone Oncology co-founder, president and CEO. “We believe that this substantial funding, along with our best-in-class expertise, a systematic discovery and development approach, and our commitment to do the scientific heavy-lifting required, will enable us to solve the core challenge of identifying personalized, therapeutic neo-antigens for individual patients.

“Cancer immunotherapy is an exciting area of discovery, and an ability to predict the antigens recognized by T cells that drive tumor elimination is likely fundamental to continuing advances in the field,” said Allen. Gritstone will focus initially on discovering and developing TSNA-based therapies for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Insurers in the United States will face competing priorities for resources and time over the next 12 months, with cyber security preparedness challenging overall regulatory compliance readiness, argues Wolters Kluwer Financial Services and reported by Canadian Underwriter.

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services surveyed more than 300 insurance professionals in 2014 and 2015, tracking 10 factors across two consecutive 12-month periods to illustrate the overall level of regulatory and risk management pressures facing U.S. insurers.

“Overall, 60% of polled insurance professionals report that cyber security will receive escalated priority at their organization, followed by regulatory risk at 42%, notes a statement from the company, which offers risk management, compliance, finance and audit solutions and maintains operations in more than 170 countries,” reports Canadian Underwriter.

Read the report.

Frank Vogl, former senior World Bank official and international reporter for The Times of London, offers 10 specific recommendations to cure the banks of what he calls “their evil ways.” Bankers won’t like most of his proposals, he warns, but the time has come for radical reform.

“The immediate danger is that a continuation of current behavior by many large banks threatens to undermine our global financial system,” Vogl writes in an article for the Huffington Post.

Recommendation number 4 is: “Boards should establish precise guidelines for employee conduct and behavior and at least 50% of all pay to bank managers, including the chief executive officer, should be based on culture performance standards.”

And recommendation number 6 states: “Whistleblowers should be encouraged and protected so that managers can be swiftly alerted to wrongdoing.”

Frank Vogl is the co-founder of two nongovernmental anti-corruption organizations: Transparency International (TI) and the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF). He is president of Vogl Communications, Inc., Washington, DC — an international economics and finance consulting firm.

Read the article.

A federal district court in New York recently held that a creditor could not be held liable for aggressively protecting its own interests when the plain language of the relevant documents permitted the actions taken by the creditor, according to a legal update from Dechert‘s Business Restructuring and Reorganization Group.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 11-cv-7670 (RJS) (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2015) arose out of an adversary proceeding initiated by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and its affiliated against JPM, the update reports.

“The Debtors advanced multiple causes of action and theories against JPM, alleging that JPM improperly and unfairly appropriated value from the Debtors (thus harming their creditors) in the months leading up to LBHI’s bankruptcy filing by allegedly strong-arming the Debtors into providing it with additional collateral and protections,” it continues. “The Court, however, entered summary judgment against LBHI on nearly all counts because it found that the written contracts between JPM and LBHI expressly permitted JPM’s purportedly inequitable actions.”

Read the article.

Oil prices, which held below $50/bbl in August 2015, are projected to remain below $60/bbl through 2016, writes Michael P. Lennon Jr., a partner in Mayer Brown. “As a result, the conventional belief is that oil and gas disputes will rise in the latter part of 2015 and into 2016, triggered in some measure by the banks’ next round of reserve-based redeterminations for oil and gas companies. Whether it is for this reason or some other, financial strain in the industry is likely to spin off disputes between producers and service companies and/or among working interest partners. Infrastructure and construction disputes also will be in the mix.”

His article outline three steps that could maximize opportunities for dispute avoidance. “If a dispute is not avoided, a party taking these steps should also be in a better position to manage and, hopefully, prevail in an eventual dispute,” he writes.

Read the article.

Term sheets and commitment letters are documents frequently used by lenders to outline the terms of a potential financing. However, these two documents differ with respect to what is required of, and whether the terms are binding on, the parties, write Paul M. Fogleman and Brian F. Corbett of Poyner Spruill LLP.

“A commitment letter differs from a term sheet in that it creates a binding agreement on the part of a lender to make a loan on the stated terms.” they write. “In addition, a commitment letter generally requires that a borrower reimburse a lender for out-of-pocket expenses and possibly pay a break-up fee if the loan transaction does not close, whereas there is generally no obligation for the borrower to pay these costs and fees in a term sheet.”

They offer some points to consider in drafting commitment letters and term sheets.

Read the article.

A Texas state court jury handed down a $19.9 million verdict against Canadian stock promoter Robert Kubbernus based upon findings of fraud and violations of the Texas Securities Act, according to a report on PRWeb. The verdict included actual and punitive damages, and after pre-judgment interest and attorney’s fees and expenses are added, the total judgment could exceed $25 million. The case, JoAnn Schermerhorn, et al. v. CenturyLink, Inc. and Robert Kubbernus, et al., was tried before Judge Michael Landrum of the Harris County District Court in Cause No. 2010-09675.

New York City-based Samuel Goldman & Associates was retained by more than 60 investors and shareholders in SkyComm Technologies Corp., to pursue their claims against Kubbernus and CenturyLink, the company that turned control of SkyComm over to him in 2006. SG&A worked with local trial counsel, Eric Fryar and Christina Richardson, of Houston’s Fryar Law Firm, and Harold Obstfeld, a New York securities litigator, in securing the verdict after five and a half years of litigation and a three week trial.

Read the story.

Payoneer will present a complimentary webinar on the key components that a business needs to make up a risk and compliance program.

The webinar, titled “Risky Business? The Top 4 Risks that Online Marketplaces Must Consider and How to Address Them,” will be Wednesday, July 15, beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

“This webinar is a must-watch for finance, legal, risk and compliance professionals from all types of online marketplaces, regardless of the products or services you sell.” Payoneer says on its website.

The event will cover:

• The key elements of strategic, reputational, fraud and compliance risk and why they are important to every online marketplace
• The legal requirements that apply to online marketplaces of all sizes, whether you’re starting out or already leading your category
• How do you build a risk management program that keeps your marketplace safe and allows you to focus on growing globally
• Your essential checklist when making sure your payment provider has a risk and compliance program

Two of the industry’s leading experts with experience in building risk and compliance programs for marketplaces in the freelance, ecommerce, travel and other verticals will be available for a live Q&A session.

Register for the webinar.

LifeStorage, L.P., an owner, acquirer and operator of premier self-storage facilities, announced that it has secured a new $300 million acquisition facility & term loan from a consortium led by Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and BMO Capital Markets Corp. together as joint lead arranger, with participation from Raymond James Bank, as detailed in the company press release below.

Latham & Watkins LLP advised LifeStorage, L.P. and its affiliates, in this financing transaction with a finance team led by partners Glen Collyer, Nathaniel Marrs and David Meckler, with associates Nathan Logan and Alexandra Koenig. Collyer is based in the firm’s Los Angeles office, Marrs, Logan and Koenig in Chicago, and Meckler in Orange County, CA.

LifeStorage will use the $300MM financing to support its growth strategy of acquiring premier properties in the top 50 markets across the U.S. Additional terms were not disclosed.

“This new financing builds on our excellent momentum and provides us with additional flexibility to continue adding best-in-class, institutional quality properties to our portfolio opportunistically,” said Mark Good, Chief Executive Officer of LifeStorage. “We are committed to building a brand that resonates with consumers by offering the very storage experience and top notch customer service expected in a premier facility.”;

LifeStorage has a rigorous selection criteria for acquiring facilities, including location and convenience for customers, property amenities, high standards for security, and a retail-like environment that is clean and brightly lit, ensuring an excellent customer experience. The company also reviews each property in terms of how it will add value to its overall portfolio of real estate assets as well as advance its strict brand standards.

“Citi is proud to support the LifeStorage team as it executes its strategy to become the leading brand in the self-storage industry,” said Matthew Greenberger, Managing Director, Real Estate and Lodging Corporate and Investment Banking at Citi. “Through our partnership, we are excited to help LifeStorage continue its strong growth plan and its efforts to provide an industry-leading customer experience.”;

LifeStorage clusters its properties in strategic locations, enabling the company to offer convenient and diverse storage options for its customers. In October 2014, TPG Real Estate (“TPG”), the real estate platform of TPG, a leading global private investment firm invested $120MM in LifeStorage.

About LifeStorage

LifeStorage is an owner, acquirer and operator of premier self-storage facilities, committed to be the best self-storage option for customers, the best employer and neighbor in the communities it serves, while laser focused on creating value for investors. LifeStorage offers best-in-class storage solutions with high-quality customer service, engaged and knowledgeable employees, convenient locations, operating with impeccable housekeeping standards, as well as a full suite of customer focused amenities including climate-controlled units, drive-in access, and value-added services such as fully furnished office spaces and meeting rooms.

Founded in 2011, LifeStorage is headquartered in Roseville, CA. The company currently owns, has under purchase agreement and operates 89 properties in 9 states across the U.S. as of December 31, 2014. For more information, please visitwww.LifeStorage.com.

CounselWorks and Compliance Science will present a complimentary webinar providing practical guidance on preparing for an SEC examination, conducted by Kathleen Malone, a former SEC examiner.

The webinar will be Tuesday, June 23, beginning at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Presenters will discuss how to prepare a presentation that outlines your strategy and specific risks, in order to lay the right foundation for the examination staff from the outset. Other topics will include managing the staff, documenting requests and deficiency letters, and data analytics.

Register for the webinar.

by Sean Cronin, ProcessUnity

Regulatory bodies including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have made clear that when a bank outsources functions to third parties, the bank is still responsible for managing risks associated with those functions. But what if the third party then outsources certain functions to yet another company? Is the bank now expected to manage risks associated with that company, which is now a fourth party vendor to the bank?

In a word, yes, and it so happens bank regulators make the same argument. “A bank’s use of third parties does not diminish the responsibility of its board of directors and senior management to ensure that the activity is performed in a safe and sound manner and in compliance with applicable laws,” says OCC Bulletin 2013-29, issued on Oct. 30, 2013. As one of the factors contributing to the number and complexity of bank relationships with third parties, the same document cites “contracting with third parties that subcontract activities to other foreign and domestic providers.” One of the OCC’s concerns is that banks enter into contracts “without assessing the adequacy of a third party’s risk management practices.”

Banks would do well to share those concerns and for the most part, they do. But the issue is a thorny one because it is indeed a complex task for banks to continually manage risk for all those third- and fourth-party vendors.

The operative word there is “continually,” because risk management is an ongoing process. Any company performs due diligence before contracting with a third-party service provider. But the key to effective risk management is ongoing follow-up, to ensure the controls that were in place when the relationship began remain in place over time, and change as necessary to manage new risks.

This level of risk mitigation requires a repeatable program that includes periodic inspection. “You don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect,” as the saying goes.

At a minimum, inspection begins by identifying all fourth-party providers that are servicing your bank. You need to understand the type of information and services being outsourced, and what controls are in place to protect the bank’s interests.

The idea is to gain an understanding of the total risk across both third and fourth parties and what contingency plans are in place should an event occur. It makes sense to be proactive in this effort because banks will increasingly be under pressure from regulators and their own boards to prove a program is in place for managing both third- and fourth-party providers.

Such a program involves assessments that take a sampling of the controls that should be in place and asks vendors questions to ensure they are indeed in place and functioning as intended. But as banks continue to outsource more and more functions to cloud providers and others, the inspection process can become unwieldy at best and, at worst, untrustworthy.

To ease the burden, banks need to automate the process of conducting assessments and analyzing results. The program should be set up to follow risk tolerance guidelines and measurements that are well-defined and defensible to senior management and regulators.  It should produce documentation that helps illustrate where you may need to take steps to further reduce risk, such as diversifying to reduce exposure. In general, it should provide plenty of data elements and analytics to improve decision-making.

Besides the main benefit such an automated program provides – reducing your level of risk – this kind of proactive, self-policing program also gives banks a leg up in its meetings with regulators. It’s like taking a test where you know the questions ahead of time and can prepare your answers. The regulators will be asking you the same questions you’ve been asking your third- and fourth-party providers because you’ve, in effect, been regulating them all along.

Automating your vendor risk management program also ensures risk assessments don’t fall through the cracks because of overloaded internal auditors. What’s more, it eliminates the appearance of subjectivity in vendor classifications and ensures the process is repeatable. Automation also brings a new level of intelligence, because an automated system can find trends and the proverbial needle in a haystack that may help you prevent a serious breach.

Being proactive and finding those needles will help any bank prove it’s doing an effective job at regulating all of its service providers, both third and fourth party, all the while reducing its risk of exposure.

Moving to the Cloud: Why now? 

For law firms and financial institutions, questions linger about the transition to cloud-based technology: is it safe? How does it benefit the existing infrastructure? Will new IT personnel need to be hired in order to manage it?

The simple answer is that cloud-based solutions are designed to be easier to deploy and more affordable to manage than comparative on-premise solutions. There is minimal set-up involved in building a cloud database, and it’s managed by the vendor – not the IT department. Therefore, banks  and law firms don’t need to invest in new IT staff to deploy a cloud-based solution, and as needs change, new applications can be deployed as required.

The less time that financial and legal organizations have to spend relying on manual tasks to control risk enables them to better allocate resources to focus on high-risk management activities. Cloud-based solutions augment that approach by simplifying the deployment process and shifting the maintenance onus to the vendor – typically with lower costs and infinite scalability.

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that life settlements sold by Life Partners Inc. are securities under state law, breathing new life into lawsuits brought by the Texas State Securities Board and a putative class of investors, reports law360.com.

“In the Texas cases brought by the state securities regulator and a group of investors, Life Partners had won trial court dismissals. But appeals courts in Austin and Dallas revived the claims after finding the life settlements were investment contracts, not insurance contracts, making them securities under state law.” the report says.

Keith Langston of Langston Law Firm, based in Longview, Texas, represents the investors.

Read the opinion.

Read the story.

MasterCard Inc. has reported that the proposed $19 million settlement with Target Corp. over  the retailer’s 2013 data breach fell through because not enough banks accepted the deal, Reuters reports.

The agreement, announced in April, would have provided up to $19 million to banks and credit unions that sued Target in federal court in Minnesota over the breach.

The banks had argued that the settlement with MasterCard, which was not a party to the lawsuit, was an attempt to undercut their claims for damages.

But a federal judge earlier this month rejected the banks’ attempt to block the deal, though he expressed concerns about its fairness. Reuters reports.

Read the story.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is expected to pay $129.5 million to settle its part of a lawsuit accusing banks of manipulating foreign-currency rates. The information is from someone familiar with the matter, the Journal says.

A final accord may be reached in the next several weeks, according to the source.

“The deal would add Goldman to the list of settlements private investors have extracted from many of the world’s largest banks including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., UBS AG and Bank of America Corp.,” the Journal reports.

Read the story.

The Coats Rose Affordable Housing Group served as counsel to the Housing Authority of the City of El Paso for the closing on the redevelopment of 13 properties totaling 1,590 units which were converted from public housing to project based Section 8 under HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration Program, the firm reports in a release.

The project was closed as one 4 percent tax credit/bond transaction with $125,000,000 of tax exempt bonds and $80,000,000 of tax credit equity.

The release says this represents the largest single issuance of housing tax credits ever approved by the Texas Department Housing and Community Affairs and the largest RAD conversion closing to date in the country. The total development cost was approximately $250,000,000.

“This deal means more working El Paso families will have the opportunity to provide their children with a safe, stable environment,’ says Coats Rose Affordable Housing Director Barry Palmer. “We are proud to have worked with HACEP to make this possible and want to thank the staff at HUD and TDHCA who worked so hard to help expedite the necessary approvals. The Housing Authority of the City of El Paso is a national leader in this innovative program to bring substantial private capital to help develop affordable housing for those most in need”

Coats Rose attorneys Barry Palmer and Bill Walter have been at the forefront of the RAD program, having closed the first three RAD transactions in the State of Texas in 2014 and now following up with these 13 properties.

Gerry Cichon, Executive Director of HACEP stated, “We have been working on this transaction for over a year now. When HUD made this program available as a demonstration program in 2013 we recognized immediately that this is the future of public housing. This allows the Housing Authority to do renovations of over $65,000 a unit on these 13 properties. It results in a substantial investment in the El Paso community with the creation of countless construction jobs and vastly improved housing conditions for 1,590 families.”

Also playing key roles in the transaction were attorneys from Reno & Cavanaugh PLLC, Ballard Spahr LLP, Nixon Peabody LLP and Bracewell & Giuliani LLP.

The federal Housing Tax Credit Program is the state’s primary means of incentivizing the investment of private capital in the development of affordable rental housing. Developers and their investment partners use the credits to offset their federal tax liability on a dollar-for-dollar basis in exchange for the construction or rehabilitation of rental units offering a reduced rent over an extended period of time.

Coats Rose is a business transaction and litigation law firm based in Houston, Texas. For more than 25 years, Coats Rose attorneys have worked with clients in construction/surety law, real estate law, commercial litigation of all types, municipal law, public finance, affordable housing, insurance law, labor and employment law, and governmental relations. Coats Rose is comprised of over 90 attorneys, with offices in Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and New Orleans.

Deloitte will present a Dbriefs webcast on strategies and potential paths forward for oil and gas companies across the value chain, including upstream, oilfield services, midstream, and downstream, in a challenging investment environment.

The free webinar will be Tuesday, April 28, at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

After driving a period of record capital inflows and spending, growing supplies from shale oil fields have led to a new investment environment for crude oil and natural gas companies, Deloitte says on its website. This environment is low-priced for exploration and production companies globally and short-cycled for shale-focused exploration and production companies.

The webinar will cover the recent record capital growth in the oil and gas sector, and today’s situation of capital disturbance that threatens the profitability and sustainability of many oil and gas companies.

Register for the webinar.

Eric Goldberg, a partner in DLA Piper

DLA Piper has announced today that Eric Goldberg has joined the firm’s Restructuring practice as a partner in the Los Angeles office.

Goldberg represents debtors both in and out of court, as well as creditors and other stakeholders, including lenders and funds, in a variety of transactions. His practice involves complex bankruptcy-related litigation, including contested confirmations, adversary proceedings, and working with hedge funds, bondholders and buyers of distressed assets.

“Eric has deep relationships with a number of lenders and investors, as well as funds that are active in distressed markets across the country,” said Gregg Galardi, co-chair of DLA Piper’s global and US Restructuring practices. “He will be instrumental in helping clients avoid pitfalls when buying distressed companies or their assets, as well as handling bankruptcy litigation and out-of-court restructurings.”

Goldberg is the firm’s most recent addition in Los Angeles, following on the heels of litigation partners Mike Piazza, Linda Smith and Mark Riera, and employment partner Phyllis Cheng.

“We have experienced significant growth in Los Angeles in recent months, and the addition of Eric will complement our increasing capabilities and further strengthen our strategic practice areas in Southern California,” said Perrie Weiner, international co-chair of DLA Piper’s Securities Litigation practice and co-managing partner of the firm’s Los Angeles offices.

Goldberg joins DLA Piper from Gordon Silver, and was previously a senior partner with Los Angeles-based bankruptcy boutique Stutman, Treister & Glatt. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his B.S. from Cornell University.

About DLA Piper (www.dlapiper.com)
DLA Piper is a global law firm located in more than 30 countries throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, positioning it to help companies with their legal needs around the world. In certain jurisdictions, this information may be considered attorney advertising.