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This archive page contains posts by the Whistleblower Practice Group.  For all Whistleblower pages, please see: 

Page 707 of 942

December 15, 2014

Massachusetts-based manufacturer of scientific instruments Bruker Corporation agreed to pay $2.4M to settle charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by providing non-business related travel and improper payments to various Chinese government officials in an effort to win business.  SEC

December 10, 2014

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $4M to settle charges it violated the market access rule when it failed to uphold credit limits for a customer firm with a rogue trader who engaged in fraudulent trading of Apple stock.  An SEC investigation found that Morgan Stanley, which offers institutional customers direct market access through an electronic trading desk, did not have the risk management controls necessary to prevent the rogue trader from entering orders that exceeded pre-set trading thresholds.  The trader exploited the market access and, without Morgan Stanley’s knowledge, committed a fraud that eventually shuttered the firm where he worked.  SEC

November 25, 2014

The SEC charged HSBC’s Swiss-based private banking arm HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) with violating federal securities laws by failing to register with the SEC before providing cross-border brokerage and investment advisory services to U.S. clients.  The bank admitted wrongdoing and agreed to pay $12.5M to settle the SEC’s charges.  SEC

November 21, 2014

The SEC charged father-and-son executives Robert and Marc Benou at New Jersey-based penny stock company Conolog Corporation for issuing false and misleading press releases while secretly selling thousands of their own stock shares into the market.  They agreed to pay nearly $325,000 and accept officer-and-director bars to settle the SEC’s charges.  SEC

November 21, 2104

The SEC announced charged William E. Redmond Jr., former CEO and board member of engineering and chemical company GenTek Inc., with passing on insider trading to his close friend Stefano Signorastri.  GenTek’s nonpublic negotiations to find suitors for a company sale were among the topics that Redmond shared with Signorastri.  Redmond and Signorastri agreed to pay more than $324,000 to settle the SEC’s charges.  SEC

November 20, 2014

The SEC announced that Los Angeles-based broker-dealer Wedbush Securities agreed to settle a pending SEC case for market access violations by admitting wrongdoing, paying a $2.44M penalty.  The SEC’s order finds that Wedbush violated the market access rule by failing to have adequate risk controls in place before providing customers with access to the market, including some customer firms with thousands of essentially anonymous overseas traders.  SEC

November 20, 2014

The SEC suspended trading in four companies that claim to be developing products or services in response to the Ebola outbreak, citing a lack of publicly available information about the companies’ operations.  The SEC simultaneously issued an investor alert warning about the potential for fraud in microcap companies purportedly involved in Ebola prevention, testing, or treatment, noting that scam artists often exploit the latest crisis in the news cycle to lure investors into supposedly promising investment opportunities.  The companies whose trading was suspended were Bravo Enterprises Ltd., Immunotech Laboratories Inc.,Myriad Interactive Media Inc. and Wholehealth Products Inc.  SEC

November 17, 2014

The SEC sanctioned Stephen Timms and Yasser Ramahi, two former employees in the Dubai office of US-based defense contractor FLIR Systems Inc., for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by taking government officials in Saudi Arabia on a “world tour” to help secure business for the company.  The two employees later falsified records in an attempt to hide their misconduct.  FLIR is headquartered in Oregon and produces thermal imaging, night vision, and infrared cameras and sensor systems.  SEC

November 17, 2014

The SEC charged three penny stock promoters Anthony Thompson, Jay Fung, and Eric Van Nguyen with conducting pump-and-dump schemes involving stocks they were touting in their supposedly independent newsletters for Blast Applications Inc., Smart Holdings Inc., Blue Gem Enterprise Inc., Lyric Jeans Inc.and Mass Hysteria Entertainment Company Inc.  According to the SEC, the defendants worked in coordinated fashion to gain control of a large portion of shares in the stock of these microcap companies and then hyped those stocks in newsletters they distributed to prospective investors.  After creating demand for the stock and increasing the value, they sold their holdings at the higher prices and earned significant profits.  Once they stopped their promotional efforts, the demand for the stocks subsided and the prices dropped, leaving investors who had purchased the promoters’ shares with significant losses.  The defendants allegedly conducted five separate schemes that resulted in more than $10M in ill-gotten gains.  SEC

November 17, 2014

The SEC charged Joseph A. Noel, CEO of San Francisco-based penny stock company YesDTC Holdings, with defrauding investors by issuing false and misleading press releases portraying his purported marketing and infomercial company as a successful venture in order to drive the stock price up while he covertly sold millions of shares into the public market for more than $300,000 in illicit profits. SEC
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