March 9, 2016

Cyprus-based company Banc de Binary Ltd., its founder Oren Shabat Laurent, and three affiliates, will pay $11 million to settle charges of illegally selling binary options to U.S. investors.  The SEC’s 2013 complaint alleged that the defendants failed to register the offering before soliciting U.S. customers and failed to register as a broker-dealer before communicating directly with U.S. clients.  Binary options differ from more conventional options contracts because the payout typically depends entirely on whether the price of a particular asset underlying the option will rise above or fall below a specified amount.  The defendants will pay about $9 million to the SEC and $2 million to the CFTC which filed a parallel action.  A fair fund has been established to distribute money to the harmed investors.  SEC

Tagged in: Fraud in CFTC-Regulated Markets, Regulatory Violations, Securities Fraud,