The domestic jurisdictional boundaries of multinational securities transactions are blurred at best. With greater frequency our courts are asked to evaluate the competing interests of foreign jurisdictions and our own ideals of what disclosure and accountability procedures need to be undertaken in a myriad of increasingly complex multinational transactions—a particularly thorny evaluation in circumstances when at least one of the principals to the transaction(s) under review endeavored to avoid the reach of U.S. regulations.
Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit addressed such a complex analysis in U.S. v. Mandell. The court was faced with the convictions of defendants Ross Mandell and Adam Harrington (collectively the defendants) of conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud, and mail fraud.1 Over the course of eight years, the defendants had executed—from two different Wall Street brokerages—a wide-ranging scheme to defraud investors.2 After a jury found defendants guilty of all four securities fraud counts charged against them, the district court imposed a 144-month prison term on Mandell and a 60-month prison term on Harrington, and ordered that they pay restitution and fines totaling over $70 million.
