U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 23443 / January 11, 2016
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Steven H. Davis, et. al, Civil Action No. 14-cv-01528 (VEC) (S.D.N.Y.)
SEC Obtains Judgment Against Steven H. Davis
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that on January 8, 2016, the Honorable Valerie E. Caproni of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a judgment against defendant Steven H. Davis. The judgment resolves all issues of liability against Davis arising from the Commission's filing of a civil complaint against him on March 6, 2014. The judgment imposes on Davis a permanent injunction against future violations of certain antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and bars Davis from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company.
In its Complaint, the Commission alleged that in 2008 and 2009, Davis, the chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf, LLP, an international law firm, was aware of and supported efforts by employees and officers of Dewey & LeBoeuf to materially falsify the firm's financial statements in order to meet certain covenants with its lenders. In 2010, Davis authorized Dewey & LeBoeuf to raise $150 million in a private placement and to provide Dewey & LeBoeuf's fraudulent financial statements to investors in the private placement.
Davis consented to the entry of a judgment permanently enjoining him from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and prohibiting Davis from acting as an officer or director of any issuer that has a class of securities registered pursuant to Section 12 of the Exchange Act or that is required to file reports pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act. In addition, the judgment provides that the payment of disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, and the imposition of civil monetary penalties will be determined at a later date.
The SEC staff in the New York office responsible for the investigation and the ongoing litigation includes William Finkel, Joseph Ceglio, Christopher Mele, Michael Osnato, Howard Fischer, and Thomas P. Smith, Jr. The case has been supervised by Sanjay Wadhwa.
For further information, see Press Release 2014-45 (March 6, 2014).