Archive

March 29, 2016

AVEO Pharmaceuticals Inc. will pay $4 million to settle charges that it mislead investors about its efforts to obtain FDA approval for Tivozanib, its flagship developmental drug to treat kidney cancer.  The SEC alleges that AVEO concealed the FDA’s level of concern about Tivozanib in public statements to investors by omitting the critical fact that FDA staff had recommended a second clinical trial to address concerns about patient death rates during the first clinical trial.  When the FDA made public months later that it had recommended an additional clinical trial, the company’s stock price declined 31 percent.  AVEO never conducted an additional trial and the FDA later refused to approve Tivozanib.  The SEC also filed charges against AVEO’s former CEO, CFO, and CMO.  These charges remain outstanding.  SEC

March 29, 2016

Former market analyst and TV news commentator Tobin Smith and his company NBT Group Inc. will pay over $250,000 to settle charges that they fraudulently promoted a penny stock to investors.  The SEC alleged that Smith and NBT were paid to prepare and disseminate communications touting the stock of IceWEB Inc., a data storage company.  Smith and NBT did not fully disclose their compensation to investors.  In addition, the promotional material contained false and misleading statements intended to artificially increase the trading volume and share price of IceWEB’s stock.  SEC

March 28, 2016

The SEC charged New York-based securities professional Andrew W.W. Caspersen with soliciting approximately $95 million from two institutional investors by offering promissory notes issued by Irving Place III SPV LLC.  The SEC alleges that Irving Place III SPV LLC is a shell entity formed and controlled by Caspersen with no legitimate business operations, unlike the similarly named Irving Place Capital Partners III SPV which is not associated with Caspersen in any way.  Caspersen obtained a $25 million investment in November 2015 from an institutional investor by falsely representing that the investment would be secured by approximately $900 million of assets of Irving Place Capital Partners III SPV.  SEC

March 25, 2016

The SEC brought fraud charges and obtained asset freezes against New Jersey fund manager John Bivona and his firms Saddle River Advisors and SRA Management Associates for marketing shares in promising pre-IPO tech companies in the Bay Area while stealing $5.7 million and diverting millions more to other improper and undisclosed uses.  The SEC alleges that Bivona used money raised through his firms to pay off earlier investors, prop up other funds, and pay family-related expenses.  He secretly steered the lion’s share of misappropriated funds to his nephew Frank Mazzola who was barred from the securities industry in a prior SEC enforcement action.  The SEC alleges that while Bivona raised more than $53 million from investors, the money he siphoned away for undisclosed uses left his firms continuously short of the cash needed to buy the shares promised to investors.  SEC

March 15, 2016

The SEC charged former Boston resident Mark A. Jones with operating a $10 million Ponzi scheme that claimed to generate profits from “bridge loans” to businesses in Jamaica.  Jones was arrested by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts has filed related criminal charges against him.  SEC

March 15, 2016

Kansas-based municipal advisor Central States Capital Markets, its CEO, and two employees will pay about $437,327 collectively to settle charges that they breached their fiduciary duties by failing to disclose a conflict of interest to a municipal client.  According to the SEC’s order, while Central States served as a municipal advisor to a client on municipal bond offerings in 2011, two of its employees, in consultation with the CEO, arranged for the offerings to be underwritten by a broker-dealer where all three worked as registered representatives.  Central States did not inform the client of its relationship to the underwriter or the financial benefit it obtained from serving in dual roles.  In three offerings, Central States received 90 percent of the underwriting fees the client city paid to the broker-dealer.  The case is the SEC’s first to enforce the fiduciary duty for municipal advisors created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act which required these advisors to put their municipal clients’ interests ahead of their own.  SEC

March 14, 2016

The SEC charged microcap company RVPlus Inc. and its CEO, Lee Peterson, with making bogus claims in the company’s public filings and in statements to private investors and with unlawfully distributing RVPlus’ stock.  The SEC alleges that starting in 2012, Peterson filed periodic reports with the SEC claiming that RVPlus had a lucrative relationship with the United Nations and clean energy agreements with governmental bodies in Nigeria, Haiti, and Liberia worth $2.8 billion.  RVPlus had no relationship with the U.N. and the contracts were fictitious.  In addition, the SEC alleges that RVPlus and Peterson gained control of more than 90 percent of RVPlus’ free trading shares and gave them individuals who unlawfully sold them into the market.  SEC

March 14, 2016

Three AIG affiliates, Royal Alliance Associates, SagePoint Financial, and FSC Securities Corporation, will pay $9.5 million to settle SEC charges of steering mutual fund clients toward more expensive share classes so the firms could collect more fees.  An SEC investigation found that the firms placed clients in share classes that charged fees for marketing and distribution despite the clients being eligible to buy shares in fund classes without those additional charges.  As a result, the firms collected approximately $2 million in extra fees.  The firms failed to disclose this conflict of interest.  The SEC’s order also alleged that the firms failed to monitor advisory accounts on a quarterly basis to prevent reverse churning.  The firms had compliance policies and procedures to ensure that fee-based advisory accounts that charged an inclusive fee for both advisory services and trading costs remained in the best interest of clients that traded infrequently, but failed to implement those policies and procedures.  SEC

March 11, 2016

The SEC charged California businessman Daniel Nase with raising money from investors through unregistered offerings of common stock in his Bakersfield, California-based company, BIC Real Estate Development Corp., and using the funds for personal expenses.  Nase tried to cover up the theft after learning of the SEC’s investigation by investing stolen assets back into the company to make it appear he was increasing his equity stake in it.  SEC

March 10, 2016

The SEC charged Oregon-based investment group Aequitas Management LLC and four affiliates, along with three top executives, with raising more than $350 million from investors while hiding the group’s rapidly deteriorating financial condition.  Aequitas allegedly defrauded more than 1,500 investors nationwide into believing they were making health care, education, and transportation-related investments when their money was really being used in a last-ditch effort to save the firm, including using some new money to pay earlier investors.  SEC