Please click the arrow “Play” button on the audio player below to listen to, or download, our discussion on Wadhwa’s new unit and investigations involving insider trading, specialist misconduct, offering fraud, and improper activities at hedge funds. We also discuss the significant reorganization now going on in the Division of Enforcement, and look inside the recent insider trading action brought against hedge fund giant Galleon, and the successful Reebok insider trading investigation.

Please click below to listen to Securities Docket Radio: (or download here)

Kalinowski and Kuhlman both concentrate their practices in the area of securities litigation. The four securities litigators joining Bryan Cave as counsel are Carrie J. Bechtold, Adam S. Hochschild, Jeffrey S. Jamieson and Eric D. Martin. All six lawyers are reportedly joining Bryan Cave from Husch Blackwell Sanders.

Read the Bryan Cave press release

Judge Testar said that Calvert had made the trades worth £502,000 “deliberately, not recklessly,” adding that Calvery “took advantage of information from someone he knew to be under a duty not to disclose it. Malcolm Calvert was keenly aware of what the obligations of the primary insider were and he was keen or willing to exploit the primary insider’s breach of duty.”

Read The Telegraph article

The securities fraud slot has been open for more than two years. Former DOJ attorney Tom Hanusik, now a partner at Crowell & Moring, told Main Justice that the promotions could be “a sign that Lanny Breuer’s Criminal Division and Denis McInerney’s Fraud Section are dedicating new resources to corporate securities fraud.”

Read the Main Justice article

Bloomberg reports that the groups have combined to ask Congress to amend the regulatory overhaul bill now under Senate consideration such that brokerage firms will pay about $4 billion in additional, retroactive fees to SIPC. The victims also reportedly want Congress to require SIPC to compensate them up to $500,000 each for losses.

Duke Law professor James Cox said the lobbying initiative “gives new meaning to the word chutzpah. This is just a tax increase. It’s levied on banks but customers end up paying.”

Read the Bloomberg article

Topics to be discussed include:

• A brief background on credit ratings agencies and a look at what ratings are trying to convey;
• How asset-backed securities are analyzed: collateral, legal structure, and servicing;
• The basic mechanics of asset-backed securities and how ratings are determined; and
• A detailed look at a done deal: tranching, protection, and default and recovery risk

Please join Steve Herscovici, Managing Principal, Analysis Group, and Bill Chambers, Finance and Credit Analysis Professor, Boston University as they address these issues and your questions in this free webcast.

To attend this webcast scheduled for Tuesday, April 13, at 1 pm Eastern, please sign up below.