June 08, 2021

May 2021 Ponzi Scheme Roundup

By Kathy Bazoian Phelps Below is a summary of the activity reported for May 2021. The reported stories reflect at least 4 new Ponzi schemes worldwide, 1 guilty plea, about 77 years of prison sentences, and an average age of approximately 55 for the alleged Ponzi schemers. Please feel free to post comments about these or other Ponzi schemes that I may have missed. Ted Brent Alexander , 55, and Jon Darrell Seawright...

April 08, 2021

Respecting Rule of Law Through The Judicial Process

By Ian McDougall, General Counsel LexisNexis Legal & Professional There are four elements of the Rule of Law that LexisNexis uses as its definition: Equality before the law, access to the law, independent judiciary and access to remedy. Of course, the importance of the last two points is their interconnectivity. Having access to remedy (the object of which is to produce an outcome that can be considered reasonable...

February 11, 2021

The Winner of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Challenge Is...

By Ian McDougall, President of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Last summer, the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation (LNROLF) launched the inaugural Rule of Law Challenge contest which provided employees across RELX with the opportunity to get their rule of law ideas supported by the Foundation. Almost 50 employees from across RELX responded with insightful and impressive ideas! Today we are proud to announce...

January 15, 2021

Language Matters: Election Controversy, Social Media Controversy, and the Rule Of Law

By Ian McDougall, General Counsel, LexisNexis Legal & Professional This blog isn’t going to be about a single subject. There are a huge number of issues that have recently, in some way, touched upon the subject of the Rule of Law but I will just highlight two interesting current issues from a Rule of law perspective. The controversy in the United States over its election has produced a huge amount of media...

January 11, 2021

December 2020 Ponzi Scheme Roundup

Posted by Kathy Bazoian Phelps Below is a summary of the activity reported for December 2020. The reported stories reflect at least 3 new Ponzi schemes worldwide, 3 guilty pleas, over 30 years of prison sentences and one life sentence, and an average age of approximately 56 for the alleged Ponzi schemers. Please feel free to post comments about these or other Ponzi schemes that I may have missed. Sanjeev Acharya...

October 06, 2020

Democracy and the Rule of Law

By Ian McDougall, General Counsel of LexisNexis and President of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation One of the largest exercises in democracy will be taking place soon: The United States will hold its elections. (I say “one of the largest” because it is dwarfed by the elections in India but, still, a sizeable chunk of world democracy sits in the US!) So it seems appropriate to spend a little time speaking...

August 28, 2020

SEC Proposal To Amend The “Accredited Investor” Definition, Approved.

By Mona Shah, Esq. Good news for EB-5 issuers. On August 26, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a 3-2 vote, redefined the term “accredited investor” to remove the requirement that managers of certain high-risk funds are obligated to accept capital from investors with assets of $1 million or more. 1 Most EB-5 investments utilize Regulation S and Regulation D registration exemptions to raise...

August 10, 2020

July 2020 Ponzi Scheme Roundup

Posted by Kathy Bazoian Phelps Below is a summary of the activity reported for July 2020. The reported stories reflect at least 10 new Ponzi schemes worldwide, 5 guilty pleas, 95 years of prison sentences, and an average age of approximately 54 for the alleged Ponzi schemers. Please feel free to post comments about these or other Ponzi schemes that I may have missed. Gregory Altieri , 53, the president of LNA Associates...

August 10, 2020

EB-5 CAPITAL REDEPLOYMENT GUIDANCE ARRIVES IN TIME TO BE USED FOR COVID-19 RECOVERY PROJECTS

By Mona Shah, Esq. & Rebecca Singh, Esq. Capital redeployment in EB-5 has been and continues to be one of the most important topics for the industry today. There is an estimated $15 billion invested into projects all over the US, that could potentially be redeployed. Furthermore, although the full effect of the Coronavirus pandemic on the US economy cannot yet be accurately assessed, what is evident is that the...

June 05, 2020

May 2020 Ponzi Scheme Roundup

Posted by Kathy Bazoian Phelps Below is a summary of the activity reported for May 2020. The reported stories reflect at least 5 new Ponzi schemes worldwide; at least 2 guilty pleas and convictions; and an average age of approximately 59 for the alleged Ponzi schemers. Please feel free to post comments about these or other Ponzi schemes that I may have missed. Neil Burkholz , 82, and Frank Bianco , 70, of Florida...