Archive

March 2, 2015

The SEC announced it has suspended trading in 128 inactive penny stock companies to ensure they don’t become a source for pump-and-dump schemes.  The trading suspensions are the latest in a microcap fraud-fighting initiative known as Operation Shell-Expel in which the SEC Enforcement Division’s Office of Market Intelligence utilizes technology to scour the over-the-counter (OTC) marketplace and identify dormant companies ripe for abuse.  SEC

February 27, 2015

The SEC charged purported venture capital fund manager Gregory W. Gray Jr. and his firms Archipel Capital LLC and BIM Management LP with fraudulently using money from three investment funds to pay fictitious returns to investors in a different fund.  SEC

February 24, 2015

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company agreed to pay more than $16M to settle charges it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) when its subsidiaries paid bribes to land tire sales in Kenya and Angola.  SEC

February 19, 2015

The SEC announced insider trading charges against Scott Zeringue, alleging that while serving as vice president of construction operations at Baton Rouge-based The Shaw Group he traded company securities based on confidential information he learned on the job about an impending acquisition by Chicago Bridge & Iron Company.  SEC

February 19, 2015

New York City-based brokerage firm VCAP Securities and its CEO Brett Thomas Graham agreed to pay nearly $1.5M to settle charges they fraudulently deceived other market participants while conducting auctions to liquidate collateralized debt obligations.  SEC

February 18, 2015

The SEC announced fraud charges and an emergency asset freeze against two operators of a Colorado-based pyramid and Ponzi scheme that promises investors extraordinary returns of 700 percent through a purported “triple algorithm” and “3-D matrix.”  According to the government, Kristine L. Johnson and Troy A. Barnes raised more than $3.8M since April 2014 from investors they enticed into buying positions in their company Work With Troy Barnes Inc. (d/b/a “The Achieve Community”) when their company had no legitimate business operations and they were merely paying purported investment returns to earlier investors.  SEC

February 13, 2015

The SEC charged purported hedge fund manager Moazzam “Mark” Malik with stealing money from his investors.  Specifically, the SEC alleges Malik raised $840,774 from investors but never made real investments and withdrew the cash and spent it as his own.  His fund, which has changed its name several times, has been called Wall Street Creative Partners, then Seven Sages Capital LP, and then American Bridge Investment Group LLC, and most recently Wolf Hedge LLC. SEC

February 11, 2015

The SEC charged Charles L. Hill Jr. with insider trading.  Specifically, the government alleges Hill made approximately $740,000 in illicit profits by trading in Radiant Systems stock on the basis of confidential inside information he received from a friend about an impending tender offer by NCR Corporation to buy the company.  SEC

February 10, 2015

The SEC announced William Slater and Peter E. Williams III, former CFOs of Silicon Valley software company Saba Software, agreed to return nearly a half-million dollars in bonuses and stock sale profits they received while Saba was committing accounting fraud.  While not personally charged with the company’s misconduct, Slater and Williams are still required under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to reimburse the company for bonuses and stock sale profits received while the fraud occurred.  Last year, the SEC charged Saba Software and two former executives responsible for the accounting fraud in which timesheets were falsified to hit quarterly financial targets.  SEC February

February 10, 2015

Craig S. Lax, former CEO of a ConvergEx, agreed to pay more than $783,000 and admit wrongdoing to settle charges he participated in a scheme that caused his company’s customers to pay substantially higher amounts than the disclosed commissions for buying and selling securities.  The company previously paid $107M and admitted wrongdoing to settle related charges.  In settling the SEC’s charges, Lax also agreed to be barred from the securities industry for at least five years.  SEC