Well – this took four months. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered en banc rehearing of an unsuccessful challenge to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of the Nasdaq Stock Market’s rules concerning diversity of directors on boards of Nasdaq-listed companies. The rules – which a panel of the Fifth Circuit upheld in October 2023 – require listed companies to disclose director-diversity information and either to have a certain number of diverse directors or to explain why not. We blogged about that decision here.

A federal district court in Missouri recently denied a motion to dismiss the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s (“SIFMA’s”) challenge to Missouri Securities Division rules that require financial firms and professionals to obtain clients’ signatures on state-prescribed documents before providing advice that “incorporates a social or nonfinancial objective.” The decision – Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association v. Ashcroft – upholds a noteworthy response from the securities industry to the anti-ESG backlash that has emerged in the past few years and has politicized investment decisionmaking.

The SEC defeated a motion for summary judgment brought by a defendant whom the SEC accused of engaging in insider trading based on news about a not-yet-public corporate acquisition when he purchased securities of a company not involved in that deal. The November 20, 2023 decision in SEC v. Panuwat (N.D. Cal.) keeps alive the SEC’s theory of “shadow trading,” which involves trading the securities of a public company that is not the direct subject of the material nonpublic information (“MNPI”) at issue.

The Panuwat decision does not appear to break new ground under the misappropriation theory of insider trading in light of the particular facts alleged. But the “shadow trading” theory warrants attention because it can potentially have wide-ranging ramifications for traders by broadening the scope of the types of nonpublic information that might be deemed material.

Since 2015, the SEC has brought nearly two dozen enforcement actions for violations of the whistleblower protection rules under Rule 21F-17(a) against employers for actions taken to impede reporting to the SEC. The bulk of these actions have focused on language in employee-facing agreements that allegedly discouraged such reporting. The

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied review of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of proposed rules promulgated by the Nasdaq Stock Market concerning the diversity of directors on Nasdaq-listed companies’ boards. The rules require listed companies to disclose director-diversity information and either to have a certain number of diverse directors or to explain why not. The decision in Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment v. SEC held that the rules do not violate the Constitution and that the SEC did not violate its statutory obligations in approving them.

The Nasdaq rules do not require board diversity; they require only disclosures and explanations. But the need to comply with the rules could have the practical effect of increasing diversity on boards of Nasdaq-listed companies.

Since 2015, the SEC has brought nearly two dozen enforcement actions for violations of the whistleblower protection rules under Rule 21F-17(a) against employers for actions taken to impede reporting to the SEC. The bulk of these actions have focused on language in employee-facing agreements that allegedly discouraged such reporting.The SEC