A group of Hinshaw partners—Aimee Delaney, David Alfini, Adam Guetzow and Ken Yeadon—recently presented at the 2018 LeadingAge Illinois Annual Meeting and Expo at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, Illinois. The seminar was geared toward helping those in the adult life services industry connect, recharge, re-energize their passion for the industry and focus on the future of care.

The U.S. law firm of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP is pleased to announce that Kenneth E. Yeadon has joined the firm as a partner in the Chicago office. Previously an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and a Senior Attorney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement, Yeadon will focus his practice on government investigations and securities litigation, internal investigations, compliance counseling, health care fraud, tax fraud and other complex business disputes.

Hinshaw partner and former SEC enforcement attorney Ken Yeadon discussed with Judy Greenwald of Business Insurance the recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to review Securities and Exchange Commission v. Charles C. Liu et. al. At issue is whether the SEC has the authority to seek disgorgement of ill-gotten gains in civil enforcement cases. The SEC reported last week it had assessed about $4.3 billion in fines and disgorgement in fiscal 2019, up from $3.9 billion a year earlier.

Hinshaw partner Ken Yeadon was featured in a Business Insurance article titled, "Trump 6-month reporting idea has D&O claims benefits, downsides." The President has reportedly suggested the SEC consider permitting biannual rather than quarterly earnings reports. Yeadon—a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement attorney—offered some thoughts about potential downsides to such a change in approach.

Hinshaw's Ken Yeadon and Michael Iasparro gave a panel presentation titled "Internal Investigations for Illinois Municipalities," on September 20, 2018 at the Illinois Municipal League's 105th Annual Conference in Chicago. The panel—of which Iasparro was the moderator—discussed factors to consider in deciding whether an internal investigation is needed, who should conduct the investigation, and investigatory best practices.

Hinshaw attorneys Conrad C. Nowak and Kenneth E. Yeadon are scheduled to present a CLE on August 29th, 2018, as part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series.

Hinshaw's Ambrose McCall and Ken Yeadon will team up to present the next program in our labor and employment web series designed to provide practical insights and best practices on some of the most challenging employment related issues facing companies today. Titled "Cybersecurity in the Workplace: How to Strengthen and Protect Your Business in an Era of Easy Computer System Access," the webinar will be held Thursday, August 16, 2018 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Central. Business owners, in-house counsel, and HR and IT directors and their staff are all encouraged to attend.

Hinshaw's Ken Yeadon, Mollie Kugler, and Robert Wagner will present at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Midwest Zone Continuing Legal Education (CLE) event June 12 – 14, 2018 in Chicago. The year's event will provide NAIC members in attendance from the 13 states of the Midwest Zone with industry-related updates and insights.

On February 21, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that protect whistleblowers from being fired, demoted, or harassed by their employers only apply to people who actually make a report of a violation of the federal securities laws to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Dodd-Frank Act established a whistleblower program that was designed to motivate individuals to report securities laws violations to the SEC by providing whistleblowers with incentives and protections. Individuals who voluntarily report information to the SEC may be entitled to a cash award of 10 to 30% of the monetary sanctions collected in enforcement actions, and they are protected from retaliation by their employers for having provided that information.

In order to get whistleblower protection under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, whistleblowers have to subjectively believe that fraud was occurring, their belief has to be reasonable, and they have to make a report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Seventh Circuit recently reaffirmed these conditions for legal protection in deciding that the former CEO of Orion Energy System, Inc. was not entitled to federal whistleblower protection in Verfuerth v. Orion Energy System, Inc., decided on January 11, 2018.

In the past two years, the SEC has charged six public companies with violating SEC Rule 21F-17, which prohibits confidentiality agreements that could impede employees from making whistleblower claims directly to the SEC. Since the Employment Law Observer reported on the SEC’s first case attacking a confidentiality agreement., the SEC has charged five more companies with Rule 21F-17 violations. In each case, the employer had confidentiality or severance agreements that either: (a) purported to limit the types of information that an employee may convey to the SEC or other authorities; or (b) required departing employees to waive their rights to any individual monetary recovery in connection with reporting information to the government. The employers settled the cases by, among other things, amending the agreements and paying a significant civil penalty.

On March 15, 2017, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published for public comment proposed amendments to the Municipal Disclosure Rule, Rule 15c2-12 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The proposed amendments add two new events to the list that a broker, dealer or municipal securities dealer acting as an underwriter in a primary offering of municipal securities must reasonably determine that an issuer has undertaken to provide to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB).