
Joshua M. Newville
Joshua M. Newville is a partner in the Litigation Department in New York and a member of Proskauer's White Collar Defense & Investigations Group and the Asset Management Litigation team.
Josh handles securities litigation, enforcement and regulatory matters, representing corporations and senior executives in civil and criminal investigations. In addition, Josh advises registered investment advisers and private fund managers on regulatory compliance, SEC exams and related risks.
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In late October, a New York district court refused to dismiss the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) indictment against defendant Nathaniel Chastain, who was charged with wire fraud and money laundering relating to his using insider knowledge to purchase non-fungible tokens (NFTs) prior to them being featured on OpenSea, an online NFT marketplace, and later selling … Continue Reading
Both the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and leader of the SEC agree that the crypto markets need regulating, and specific rules may help clarify which agency has authority to regulate various cryptocurrency activities. The client alert below discusses both CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam’s comments and SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s remarks during … Continue Reading
With new types of digital assets and related business on the rise, federal authorities have been busy investigating. Recently, the SEC, FinCEN and the CFTC have imposed some notable settlements involving cryptocurrency trading platforms for allegedly operating without appropriate approvals from financial regulatory authorities. This may be the start of the next wave of government … Continue Reading
Late last year, the SEC filed a litigated action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executive officers (collectively, “Ripple”), alleging that Ripple raised over $1.3 billion in unregistered offerings of the digital asset known as XRP. Ripple opted not to file a motion … Continue Reading
One driver for the first widely adopted cryptocurrency Bitcoin was to create a store of value that existed outside of government control. It is therefore no surprise that attempts to regulate the rapidly developing crypto asset market have required great efforts from regulators and legislators around the world to keep apace. In this blog, we … Continue Reading
The SEC announced a pair of settled orders on Tuesday extending additional provisions of the securities laws over ICOs and other digital assets – the agency’s first ever enforcement actions of their kind. As the SEC has been suggesting for over a year, because digital assets offered and sold in initial coin offerings (“ICOs”) are … Continue Reading
Last week, former CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler explained in remarks at M.I.T. that he believes the second and third most widely used virtual currencies—Ether and Ripple—may have been issued and traded in violation of securities regulations. This comes on the heels of a crackdown on cryptocurrency-related securities by the SEC, which is particularly focused on … Continue Reading
In his recent remarks at the Securities Regulation Institute, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton had some stern words for market professionals, especially lawyers, involved in initial coin offerings (ICOs). He expressed concern that lawyers in the space “can do better” in their role as gatekeepers to the securities markets, particularly in advising clients whether the “coin” … Continue Reading
District Court Declines to Dismiss NFT “Insider Trading” Indictment against Former OpenSea Employee
By Joshua M. Newville and Jonathan Mollod on Posted in AML/KYC, Digital Assets, Enforcement Action, Litigation: Criminal, NFTs
CFTC Head Urges Congressional Action on Crypto while SEC Leader Says Crypto Rulemaking is “Years Away”
By Joshua M. Newville, Robert Sutton, Julia Alonzo and Michael Guggenheim on Posted in CFTC, Cryptocurrencies, Legislation, Regulation: Federal, SEC
U.S. Federal Regulators Turn Up the Heat on Cryptocurrency Trading Platforms
Three Critical Questions That Will (Hopefully) be Answered by the SEC’s Lawsuit against Ripple
Crypto Asset Regulation: Is the US or UK Keeping Up Best With This Emerging Market?
By Dorothy Murray, Joshua M. Newville, David W. Heck and Nicholas Petrie on Posted in Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, Digital Assets, Regulation: International, Securities
Crypto Crackdown – SEC Imposes Broker-Dealer and Investment Company Registration Provisions on Token Traders and a Crypto Fund
By Joshua M. Newville, Lucy C. Wolf and Robert E. Plaze on Posted in Digital Assets, Enforcement Action, SEC, Token Sales
Regulatory Scrutiny of the ICO Market – What Fund Managers Should Know
Chairman Clayton Asks Lawyers to Knock it Off with the Unregistered Coin Offerings
By Jeffrey Neuburger and Joshua M. Newville on Posted in Regulation: Federal, SEC, Securities