Last week, The Securities and Exchange Commission charged an Arizona-based attorney and a Missouri-based agent of microcap shell companies with securities fraud and registration violations. According to the SEC’s complaint, from February 2015 to April 2017, attorney William Scott Lawler engaged in schemes to fraudulently transfer control over the shares of two publicly-traded shell companies to his client. The SEC
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Last week, The Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against five foreign traders for executing illegal matched trades in the stock of Medico International, Inc. (MDDT). The SEC also obtained an emergency court order freezing assets held in brokerage accounts of the defendants, including approximately $144,000 that otherwise could have been wired offshore, and hundreds of thousands of shares of
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On March 20th, 2019, Martha Miller – SEC Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation delivered her first speech as the SEC’s new Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation. Full speech below… Martha Miller Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation Remarks at 1 Million Cups of Coffee, PlexPod in Kansas City, Missouri March 20, 2019 Thank you, Melissa [Miller] for that
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On March 19, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged a Texas-based oil-and-gas penny stock company and its former CEO with fraudulently concealing the loss of the company’s major source of revenue. According to the complaint, in mid-2017, Cardinal Energy Group, Inc. (“Cardinal”), based in Dallas, Texas, lost control of its interest in two oil-and-gas leases that accounted for nearly
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On March 11, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against nine individuals and companies in a multi-million dollar stock distribution and market manipulation scheme involving two microcap companies, NanoTech Entertainment, Inc. and NanoTech Gaming, Inc. The SEC’s complaint alleges that David R. Foley, the founder of the NanoTech companies, orchestrated a scheme to manipulate trading in their stock
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A former employee of a Boston-based biotech company and a friend of the company’s CEO, whom the Securities and Exchange Commission have charged with stock manipulation and with making false statements and a scheme to defraud, have pleaded guilty in a parallel criminal case to charges of securities fraud and obstructing the SEC’s investigation. On September 7, 2018, Kenneth Stromsland,
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A stock promoter and a former chairman of a Massachusetts-based medical diagnostics company previously called Endeavor Power Corp were sentenced in a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts in a related criminal case brought by the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office. The Securities and Exchange Commission previously charged all three defendants with a scheme to defraud potential investors in Endeavor’s publicly traded
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Last week, the SEC announced that they obtained a judgment against a penny stock promoter in connection with multiple pump-and-dump schemes. On November 17, 2014, the SEC charged Jay Fung and two others with orchestrating schemes to manipulate five penny stocks between November 2009 and September 2010. The complaint alleged that, as part of the manipulative scheme, Fung and the
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Last week, Dr. Philip Frost, a biotech billionaire, agreed to a proposed settlement with the SEC related to what the SEC called “lucrative market manipulation schemes” worth $27 million. According to a press release from OPKO Health, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPK), a public company that Dr. Frost serves as Chairman and CEO; “Dr. Frost agreed, without admitting or denying the SEC’s
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Last Friday, The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the agenda and panelists for the 2018 Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation. The December 12 event will begin at 9 a.m. ET with opening remarks from the SEC Chairman and Commissioners followed by two morning panel discussions. The first panel will explore how capital formation options are working for
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