inSecurities Practising Law Institute

Alex Platt, an Associate Professor at the University of Kansas School of Law, joins the inSecurities podcast to discuss his latest research paper, which documents the involvement of activist short sellers in the SEC whistleblower bounty program. Professor Platt explains why this phenomenon may undermine the SEC’s goal of rooting out and deterring misconduct, and he proposes modest tweaks to the whistleblower rules to address the issue.
On the episode, Chris and Kurt also chat with Professor Platt about his past whistleblower research, including his papers “The Whistleblower Industrial Complex” and “Going Dark(er): The SEC Whistleblower Program’s Least Transparent Annual Report in Agency History.”

Award-winning journalist Diana Henriques has spent her career covering financial markets, white collar crime, and market regulation. She joins Kurt and Chris to discuss her recent book, Taming the Street: The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR’s Fight to Regulate American Capitalism, which chronicles the decade following the 1929 stock market crash, and the men in government and in the markets who fought to provide the framework for financial regulation that we still utilize today.

In April 2024, the SEC prevailed on insider trading charges against Matthew Panuwat, relying for the first time on a theory known as “shadow trading.” Nick Morgan of ICAN and Steve Cazares of Orrick join the inSecurities Podcast to discuss an amicus brief ICAN submitted in the Panuwat litigation, policy arguments against the “shadow trading” theory of liability, and the future of “shadow trading” cases for the SEC and DOJ.

George Wilson, Director of PLI’s SEC Institute (SECI), joins the inSecurities podcast — for a record ninth time! — to discuss highlights from the recent SECI Quarterly Newsletter (sign up HERE), including the SEC’s final climate disclosure and SPAC accounting rules, and recent developments at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).

Check out this recap of PLI’s program, the SEC Speaks in 2024, which Chris attended in-person in Washington DC. He provides his thoughts on the topics discussed by SEC staff as a part of the program, as well as conducting some on-the-street interviews with attendees and PLI staff. You can learn more about the program at the link below, as well as see the printed copy of SEC Commissioner remarks at the SEC website.
https://www.pli.edu/programs/the-sec-speaks?t=live
https://www.sec.gov/news/speeches-statements

Dr. Kelly Richmond-Pope has been a thought leader in the forensic accounting space for more than a decade. She joins Chris to discuss her accounting origin story, her academic research as a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, and her side gigs as a filmmaker and author, having produced and directed the 2013 documentary All the Queen’s Horses about fraud in Dixon, Illinois, and her 2023 book Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry. For more about Dr. Richmond-Pope’s work, see the links below:
https://www.kellyrichmondpope.com/
https://www.allthequeenshorsesfilm.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Fool-Me-Once-Trillion-Dollar-Industry/dp/1647823919