The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Martha Legg Miller has been named as the first Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation. The position and the new Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation were created pursuant to the bipartisan SEC Small Business Advocate Act of 2016. As the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation, Ms. Miller
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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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Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Howard M. Appel with manipulating the stocks of three microcap companies while on supervised release following his criminal conviction for a prior securities fraud. According to the SEC’s complaint, Appel orchestrated multiple schemes to manipulate the market for trading in shares of Virtual Piggy Inc., (VPIG), Red Mountain Resources Inc. (RDMP), and
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Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to adopt amendments to the “smaller reporting company” (SRC) definition to expand the number of companies that qualify for certain existing scaled disclosure accommodations. “I want our public capital markets to be a place where smaller companies can thrive and thereby provide our Main Street investors with more access to investing options where
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Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced settled charges against broker-dealers Chardan Capital Markets LLC and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services LLC (ICBCFS) for failing to report suspicious sales of billions of penny stock shares. Broker-dealers are required to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for transactions suspected to involve fraud or with no apparent lawful purpose.
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This week, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged four individuals for their roles in a fraudulent scheme that generated nearly $34 million from unlawful stock sales and caused significant harm to retail investors. According to the SEC’s complaint, the defendants manipulated the market for and illegally sold the stock of microcap issuer Biozoom Inc. As part of the alleged scheme,
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Today, SEC staff will host a roundtable that will address the market structure for thinly-traded exchange-listed securities, both equities and exchange-traded products. The roundtable, which will be held at the SEC’s headquarters at 100 F Street, NE, Washington, D.C., will discuss the challenges faced by participants in the market for thinly-traded exchange-listed securities and potential improvements that might be considered
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Last week, SEC Commissioners Michael S. Piwowar and Hester M. Peirce delivered a letter to the Senate Committee on Banking and the House Financial Services Committee. Piwowar and Peirce are breaking ranks with other SEC commissioners over a proposed increase to the Regulation A Tier II offering limit. While others at the SEC believe there is no need to increase
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Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against Wedbush Securities Inc. for failing to supervise employee Timary Delorme after the broker-dealer ignored numerous red flags indicating that Delorme was involved in a long-running pump-and-dump scheme targeting retail investors. Delorme agreed to settle fraud charges stemming from the same scheme. This is the second SEC action against Wedbush this
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Late last month, the SEC Investor Advisory Committee unanimously approved a recommendation calling for the SEC to require more disclosure from companies with dual-class shares. Noting significant increases in the number of public companies employing dual-class or other ‘entrenching governance structures,’ the Committee calls on the SEC’s division of corporate finance “to respond to the increase in dual-class and other
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