Luckin Coffee Agrees to Pay $180 Million Penalty to Settle Accounting Fraud Charges

SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged China-based company Luckin Coffee Inc. with defrauding investors by materially misstating the company’s revenue, expenses, and net operating loss in an effort to falsely appear to achieve rapid growth and increased profitability and to meet the company’s earnings estimates. Luckin, whose American Depositary Shares traded on Nasdaq until July 13, 2020, has agreed to pay a $180 million penalty to resolve the charges. read more »

SEC Charges Robinhood Financial With Misleading Customers About Revenue Sources and Failing to Satisfy Duty of Best Execution

SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Robinhood Financial LLC for repeated misstatements that failed to disclose the firm’s receipt of payments from trading firms for routing customer orders to them, and with failing to satisfy its duty to seek the best reasonably available terms to execute customer orders. Robinhood agreed to pay $65 million to settle the charges. read more »

Texas, nine U.S. states accuse Google of working with Facebook to break antitrust law

REUTERS

Texas and nine other states sued Google on Wednesday, accusing it of working with Facebook Inc in an unlawful manner that violated antitrust law to boost its already-dominant online advertising business.

The states asked that the Alphabet Inc-owned company, which controls a third of the global online advertising industry, compensate them for damages and sought “structural relief,” which is usually interpreted as forcing a company to divest some of its assets. read more »