A federal lawsuit became the price of their attempt to avoid compliance with the delivery requirements of equity securities to a registered clearing agency in due time. The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Chicago-based optionsXpress, an online brokerage and clearing agency specializing in options and futures as well as four officials at the firm [...]
A purported hedge fund is facing halt order after the Securities and Exchange Commission discovered it was actually a Ponzi scheme by a Los Angeles man who allegedly deceived members of his own community. The SEC alleges that for the past two years, Shervin Neman raised more than $7.5 million from investors by claiming to [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a self-described “Social Capitalist” with running a Ponzi scheme that targeted socially-conscious investors in church congregations. The SEC alleges that Ephren W. Taylor II made numerous false statements to lure investors into two investment programs being offered through City Capital Corporation, where he was the CEO. Instead of investor [...]
The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Ephren Taylor II with running a Ponzi scheme that targeted investors in church congregations. The SEC also charged City Capital Corporation and its former chief operating officer Wendy Connor for their roles in the scheme. According to the SEC, Taylor and City Capital raised approximately $11 million through [...]
Robert Stinson, Jr., of Berwyn, Pennsylvania, was sentenced in a parallel criminal action for orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded at least 263 investors of more than $17 million. Judge Michael M. Baylson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania sentenced Stinson to 33 years in federal prison, followed by [...]
AutoChina International Limited and 11 investors, including a senior executive and director at the China-based firm, have been charged with conducting a market manipulation scheme to create the false appearance of a liquid and active market for AutoChina’s stock. According to the SEC’s complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, [...]
As if the first penalty weren’t enough, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Frank Maas signed a consent judgment requiring the defendants in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s long-running insider trading case to pay an additional $1 million to resolve the case. Under the Judgment, defendants Zvi Rosenthal, Amir Rosenthal, [...]
US Judge Susan R. Bolton of the District Court for the District of Arizona entered a final judgment against James Li, the former Chief Executive Officer and Director of Syntax-Brillian Corporation, a developer of high-definition LCD televisions based in Tempe, Arizona. The Court ordered Li to pay disgorgement of $1,673,481, prejudgment interest of $575,472.93, an [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a Silicon Valley man who raised millions for two Internet start-ups by falsely promising investors that his companies were on the verge of undergoing successful initial public offerings and were well on their way to becoming the “next Google.” The SEC alleges that Benedict Van, of San Jose, Calif., [...]
Franklin Bank Corp.’s former chief executives are facing charges for their involvement in a fraudulent scheme designed to hide the deterioration of the bank’s loan portfolio and inflate its reported earnings during the financial crisis. The SEC alleges that former Franklin CEO Anthony J. Nocella and CFO J. Russell McCann used aggressive loan modification programs [...]
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has obtained a court-ordered freezing the assets of six Chinese citizens and one British Virgin Islands entity charged with insider trading in Zhongpin Inc., a China-based pork processor whose shares trade in the U.S. The SEC’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago on April 4, alleges the [...]
A South Florida investment manager is facing fraud charges for making false claims on his investors about his investment track record and providing bogus account statements that reflected fictitious profits. In the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the US SEC alleges that since 2005, George Elia and [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued two former executives at an Austin, Texas-based surgical products manufacturer to recover bonus compensation and stock sale profits they received during an accounting fraud at the company. According to the SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Austin, former ArthroCare Corporation CEO Michael A. Baker and former CFO Michael [...]
The United States District Court in New Jersey has entered final judgments against Frederick S. Schiff, former CFO of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (Bristol Myers) and Richard J. Lane, former President of the Worldwide Medicines Group for Bristol Myers. Schiff and Lane agreed to the judgments without admitting or denying the allegations of the Commission’s complaint, [...]
United States District Judge Robert W. Sweet of the Southern District of New York has finally ruled in favor of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a late trading scheme involving a UK hedge fund manager. The ruling orders total monetary relief of $98.6 million. The final judgment orders PCM and Chester, on a [...]
The US Securities and Exchange Commission sued two former executives at Austin, Texas-based ArthroCare Corporation to recover bonus compensation and stock sale profits they received during a period when the company’s financial statements were misstated due to accounting fraud. According to the SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Austin, former ArthroCare CEO Michael A. [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a former bank employee with misleading the bank’s independent auditors regarding risks the bank faced on certain outstanding loans. The SEC alleges that John Cinderey, a former executive vice president at San Francisco-based United Commercial Bank, acting at the direction of his superiors, misled the outside auditors evaluating financial [...]
A Warsaw, Ind.-based medical device company has violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) when its subsidiaries and agents bribed public doctors in Argentina, Brazil, and China for nearly a decade to win business, a lawsuit claimed. Biomet, which primarily sells products used by orthopedic surgeons, agreed to pay more than $22 million to settle [...]
In a bid to improve the oversight of regulated entities that operate across national borders, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has established comprehensive arrangements with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The two memoranda of understanding (MOUs) came hot on the heels of a similar supervisory [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a Risk Alert on compliance measures to help broker-dealers fulfill their due-diligence duties when underwriting offerings of municipal securities. The agency also issued an Investor Bulletin to help educate investors about municipal bonds. The alert issued by the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) notes that in [...]
