Gunster Blog
Gunster’s series of in house legal and industry blogs provides information and expanded points of interest for our clients and partners.
These are personal blog posts. The opinions expressed here are the authors’ and not those of Gunster or any other person.
SEC’s No-Action Letter is good news for pre-IPO companies
The No-Action Letter is good news for private companies that are approaching the statutory 500-shareholder limit. Exceeding this limit can be very painful for a company, as it may require significant disclosures of information without realizing any of the benefits of public company status.
Your company may be ‘publicly traded’ without your knowledge – and there may be a price to pay
Some smaller companies that are not listed on a national exchange and that have never filed any documents with the SEC are coming to find out that they may in fact be ‘publicly traded’ and may not even realize it.
Missed in Facebook IPO frenzy: they had to go public. Here are 6 ways private companies can remain private
While the Facebook IPO has been long-expected, it is important to remember the reason why Facebook decided to go public: it was required.
STOPPING THE STOP ONLINE PIRACY ACT – THE INTERNET FLEXES ITS MUSCLE
Few events in the Internet’s short history have had the sheer power and spectacle of the recent rise and fall of the Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”). SOPA and its companion bill (the Protect Intellectual Property Act (“PIPA”)) quickly went from highly touted and strongly supported legislation that appeared certain to pass to sudden and [...]
S.E.C. Takes a Harder Line on Admissions of Guilt
Earlier this month, the S.E.C. changed its long standing practice of allowing defendants of securities violations to “neither admit nor deny” criminal wrongdoing. This change is effectively the S.E.C.’s response to critics that say that the agency should not let criminal defendants simply pay a fine and avoid an admission of guilty. The new policy [...]
Zappos Hit Hard By Cyber Attack
The popular shoe and apparel ecommerce website Zappos recently suffered a significant cyber attack and data breach. While the exact details of this incident were not disclosed, this appears to have been a massive attack on Zappos’ system. Some confidential customer data was comprised in this attack and was obtained by the hackers. It appears [...]
New Cybersecurity Disclosure Obligations for SEC Filings
Risks of Cyber Attacks If you are an executive for a public company, new SEC guidance requires you to consider cybersecurity in your ongoing periodic reports. As evidenced by the barrage of news reports over the past couple of years, cyber incidents have become very significant events for all types of companies. A recent example [...]
Disclosure Guidance for European Debt Exposure
Last Friday, the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance issued its fourth topic in its CF Disclosure Series, which periodically provides the SEC’s views on various topics. This time, the SEC addressed, what it believes to be, inconsistent disclosures on European sovereign debt holdings. The SEC reminds registrants, particularly bank holding companies, of their obligations to [...]
Initiative to Encourage Women and Minorities to Explore Securities Law is a Success
Practising Law Institute (PLI) held its 43rd Annual Institute on Securities Regulation on November 9-11 in New York City at the Hilton New York Hotel. This year, Gunster sponsored a scholarship initiative for minority law students in conjunction with PLI and the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law. Twenty scholarships were [...]
Technology IPOs – Where Do We Go From Here?
Some of the best known names in technology were able to conduct initial public offerings during 2011. These included technology companies like LinkedIn, Pandora, Groupon, Zillow, Demand Media and others. This will likely continue tomorrow as one of the most highly anticipated technology company offerings of the year (Zynga, a developer of online games for [...]
