SEC Announces Settlement With Cooperator in Grand Central Post-It Notes Insider Trading Case
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced a settlement with a Brooklyn man who entered into a cooperation agreement to help the agency mount evidence in an insider trading scheme in which illegal tips were passed via napkins or post-it notes at Grand Central Terminal. The SEC last year charged a law firm clerk and a stockbroker with insider trading in a scheme that used a mutual friend to pass material, nonpublic information from the law firm’s computer systems about clients’ pending corporate transactions. The SEC identified that middleman as Frank Tamayo in a subsequent complaint filed in federal court…
Read MoreSEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies to Hold Conference Call Meeting
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that its Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies will hold a public meeting by telephone conference on July 15. The advisory committee plans to continue its discussions regarding public company disclosure effectiveness and the regulatory treatment of so-called “finders” that assist companies in capital raising activities. These topics were initially discussed at the committee’s June 3 meeting. The July 15 meeting will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET and live audio will be available on the SEC’s website. The Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies provides a formal mechanism for the Commission…
Read MoreSEC Charges Oil Company and CEO in Scheme Targeting Chinese-Americans and EB-5 Investors
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a Bay Area oil and gas company and its CEO with running a $68 million Ponzi-like scheme and affinity fraud that targeted the Chinese-American community in California and investors in Asia, including some solicited as part of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. The SEC alleges that Bingqing Yang knew that Luca International Group was earning no profits and sinking under a mountain of debt, yet she made presentations to investors portraying a successful oil and gas operation with millions of barrels of oil reserves and billions of cubic feet in gas reserves. Yang…
Read MoreSEC Reappoints Lewis H. Ferguson to Second Term on PCAOB
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) member Lewis H. Ferguson has been reappointed for a second term on the Board. “I am pleased with the Commission’s reappointment of Lew Ferguson as a PCAOB board member,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “Lew brings a wealth of institutional knowledge to his position and I look forward to the contributions he will make in his continued service as a Board Member.” The PCAOB provides oversight of the audits of financial statements of public companies and broker-dealers through registration, standard setting, inspection, and disciplinary programs. …
Read MoreSEC Halts Pyramid/Ponzi Scheme Targeting Spanish and Portuguese Communities
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges and an asset freeze against the operators of a pyramid and Ponzi scheme falsely promising a gold mine of investment opportunity to investors in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking communities in Massachusetts, Florida, and elsewhere in the U.S. The SEC alleges that DFRF Enterprises, named for its founder Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho, claimed to operate more than 50 gold mines in Brazil and Africa, but the company’s revenues came solely from selling membership interests to investors and not from mining gold. With the help of several promoters, they lured investors with such false…
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