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Re:SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO by duxup on Tuesday June 04, 2019 @02:48PM (#20098027)
>Let’s also keep in mind Cooley is the Firm that developed the SAFT (security agreement for future tokens) released their SAFT whitepaper into the wild telling startups to use their SAFT legal framework to raise money with ICOs legally and these are some of the first companies the SEC targeted for enforcement actions.

They threw out some free legal advice and people used it?

I guess you get what you pay for.

I remember the story of the startup executive who thought he maybe got odd advice from his CFO about stock options but was assured that "this is how it is done". He went and asked a local attorney effectively "I don't see how this could be legal."

So they didn't do it, little while later his CFO had to resign, because they were going to jail for doing the same stock option (basically massive back dating) plan at another company.

Bullet dodged!

Re:SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO by berberous on Tuesday June 04, 2019 @03:47PM (#20098559)
>I remember the story of the startup executive...

For anyone curious, I think the parent poster is thinking of Ben Horowitz: https://a16z.com/2014/02/06/why-i-did-not-go-to-jail/

Re:SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO by will_brown on Tuesday June 04, 2019 @05:36PM (#20099508)
Well Cooley’s free SAFT legal framework ended up with startups facing SEC enforcement actions.

>I guess you get what you pay for.

Then again, Kik, Cooley’s paying client also ended up in an SEC enforcement action (they claim they already spent $5M in legal fee prior to the SEC bringing the case).

I’m not so sure the issue is how much the clients paid for Cooley’s advice so much as the advice itself.