On July 31, 2025, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an opinion vacating the wire fraud and money laundering convictions of a former manager of a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) that had been obtained on a misappropriation insider trading theory.  The Court held that the district court had erred in instructing the jury on what constituted “property” under the statute.  United States v. Chastain, No. 23-7038 (2d Cir. July 31, 2025).

On May 22, 2025, in a significant decision that clarifies the scope of the federal wire fraud statute and resolves a circuit split, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a pair of wire fraud convictions that had been premised on a fraudulent-inducement theory without a showing that defendants intended to cause, or in fact caused, their victims a net economic loss.  Kousisis v. United States, 145 S. Ct. 1382 (2025).