| Biography:
Untitled Document
Thomas Sjoblom is a Partner in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution Department
at Proskauer Rose. He is resident in the Firm’s New York and Washington,
D.C. offices. Mr. Sjoblom is a trial lawyer who represents financial institutions, including broker-dealers,
investment banks and commercial banks, and mutual funds, professionals (lawyers
and accountants), as well as officers and directors of public companies through
all stages of civil and criminal investigations by the United States Securities
and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice, as well as state regulatory
agencies and self-regulatory organizations, such as the New York Stock Exchange
and the National Associations of Securities Dealers.
SEC Experience
Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Sjoblom spent nearly 20 years at the
Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C.
From 1987 to 1999, Mr. Sjoblom served as an Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel
in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, prosecuting an array of civil proceedings
before several federal courts across the United States and administratively
before the SEC. These cases implicated the entire panoply of securities regulation,
including charges of:
- market manipulation;
- unlawful sales practices by brokers;
- insider trading;
- financial fraud and SEC reporting;
- "prime bank" trading schemes;
- unregistered securities offerings; and
- offshore and international securities frauds.
From 1979 to 1987, Mr. Sjoblom served as Branch Chief and then Special Counsel
to the SEC’s Division of Market Regulation, where he provided interpretive
advice to various segments of the securities industry on broker-dealer regulation
and transfer agent regulation, back-office issues, trading practices, tender
offer practices, market making, and contingency offerings. He also participated
in the approval of the "new options products" in the early 1980s,
including stock index options and futures and the foreign currency options.
Department of Justice Experience
While at the SEC, Mr. Sjoblom also served as Special Assistant U.S. Attorney
for the Central District of California, the Western District of New York, and
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In that capacity, in conjunction with
the U.S. Attorney’s Office for each district, he successfully prosecuted
several persons indicted for market manipulation, bank fraud and tax fraud.
In Los Angeles, he successfully prosecuted a nationwide market manipulation
that involved more than 25 broker-dealers located throughout the United States.
In Philadelphia, he was successful in prosecuting a complex market manipulation
scheme that involved a conspiracy between a Salt Lake City stock rental firm
and numerous offshore reinsurance companies that had booked manipulated stocks
on their financial statements, but then failed to provide back-up insurance
to a major medical company in Pennsylvania. The collapse of the scheme left
policyholders on the Eastern Seaboard facing millions of dollars of unpaid insurance
claims.
While at the SEC, Mr. Sjoblom also routinely provided advice to U.S. Attorney
offices across the United States on the criminal implications of securities
fraud.
International Experience
Mr. Sjoblom appeared on behalf of the U.S. government in several court proceedings
in Europe and the Netherlands Antilles. Mr. Sjoblom has also been called upon
by several European and Asian governments and securities exchanges to advise
them on investigating and prosecuting market manipulation schemes, as well as
on drafting statutes, regulations and codes of conduct outlawing market manipulation
and insider dealing. He has made presentations to the Swedish and English authorities
on these topics, and in 1999 he was asked to advise Great Britain’s House
of Lords about proposed bills before Parliament on enforcement issues and market
abuse. He also provided advice to the new Financial Service Authority (FSA)
in London on the drafting of its Code of Conduct under that statute. Further,
he was consulted by the European Commission’s Internal Market Directorate
General (DG-15) during the early stages of development of its general directive
to member states outlawing market abuse in the European Union.
Representative Matters
Mr. Sjoblom has represented or currently represents public companies and financial
institutions of all types that are the subject of SEC, NYSE, FINRA or DOJ investigations
for securities frauds:
- Financial institutions of all types that are the subject of SEC, NYSE, NASD
or DOJ investigations for securities fraud.
- Brokers and investment advisers who are the subject of SEC actions for unlawful
sales and best execution practices.
- Hedge funds and private funds in SEC investigations.
- European and Australian promoters and investors whose monies are the subject
of SEC freeze orders for international "prime bank" trading schemes
and who have been named relief defendants by the SEC to cause repatriation
of funds.
- Lawyers who are the subject of grand jury investigations and SEC proceedings
for issuing legal opinions on Regulation S offerings and standby letters of
credit.
- Nasdaq companies whose securities are the subject of market manipulation
practices, such as PIPEs, “toxic convertibles” and “death spirals.”
- Officers and directors of public companies who are the subject of SEC investigations
or civil enforcement proceedings for complex financial fraud and insider trading.
- Officers of offshore companies who are the subject of SEC civil proceedings
and DOJ criminal proceedings for international securities, commodities and
accounting frauds.
- Internal investigations (prior to FBI or SEC investigations) on behalf of
various Fortune 500 companies, international foreign corporations with US
subsidiaries, and financial institutions for financial fraud, inadequate internal
controls, defalcation of investor funds, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Foreign
Agents Registration Act, insider trading and market manipulation.
"High-Profile" Representations
- Mr. Sjoblom currently represents Martin Armstrong, the former CEO and Chairman
of Princeton Economics International and Princeton Global Management, in his
appeals to the Second Circuit for civil contempt ordered by the District Court
in the Southern District of New York. This has been the longest incarceration
in the history of federal jurisprudence in a federal facility of any individual
for civil contempt without having gone to trial in either the SEC or parallel
criminal case.
- Mr. Sjoblom represented Ricardo Salinas and Azteca Holdings in
SEC v. TV Azteca (D.D.C.) in the SEC's suit against Salinas and his affiliate
companies for an alleged $220 million non-disclosure, internal controls violations
and fraud which surfaced through a "noisy withdrawal" under the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act by former U.S. securities counsel.
- From inception of the SEC suit through 2004, Mr. Sjoblom represented former
HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in all of his SEC and related civil and criminal
cases charging violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. In 2003, he successfully
defeated the SEC in a $150 million dollar freeze of the client’s total
assets, the first defeat ever suffered by the SEC’s Enforcement Division
in a lengthy hearing of that kind. SEC v. Richard M. Scrushy (N.D.Ala).
- He was retained as a Special Prosecutor by a regional stock exchange to
prosecute floor traders and clerks engaged in conduct similar to frontrunning
and interpositioning.
- He was retained to represent the securities lawyer charged by the SEC in
a major international case involving stock manipulation.
- As a trial lawyer for the SEC, he successfully civilly prosecuted defendants
responsible for manipulation of several stocks during the "Market Break"
of October 1987 and for the collapse of recognized Wall Street firms.
- As an Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel at the SEC, he made appearances
in several European courts and the courts of the Netherlands Antilles on behalf
of the SEC.
- For additional "high-profile" representations, see DOJ matters
referenced above.
Mr. Sjoblom obtained his juris doctor degree from William Mitchell College
of Law and his master of laws degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
As an undergraduate, he attended the University of Minnesota (summa cum laude,
Phi Beta Kappa).
Thomas is a member of the New York State, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and District of Columbia Bars. He has been listed in Who's Who in America 2006, Lawdragon 2007, and New York Super Lawyers 2006 and 2007.
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