SEC Halts EB-5 Scheme Stealing Investments in Cancer Center
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges and an asset freeze against a husband and wife accused of misusing two-thirds of the money they raised from investors for the purpose of building and operating a new cancer treatment center that would use proton beam radiation to help oncology patients in Southern California. According to the SEC’s complaint unsealed today in federal court in Los Angeles, Charles C. Liu and Xin “Lisa” Wang raised $27 million for the proton therapy cancer treatment center from 50 investors in China through the EB-5 immigrant investor program. They touted in promotional…
Read MoreSEC: Adviser Steered Investor Money to His Own Companies
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a North Carolina-based investment adviser with defrauding investors by secretly steering portions of real estate-related investments into deals with companies that he owned or operated himself. The SEC alleges that Richard W. Davis Jr. breached his fiduciary duty and took no steps to disclose or ameliorate the conflicts of interest involved with using investor money to enter into transactions with entities he beneficially owned or controlled. The SEC further alleges that Davis made false or misleading statements to investors before and after they made their investments, failed to inform investors of their…
Read MoreSEC Names Christopher Hetner as Senior Advisor to the Chair for Cybersecurity Policy
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Christopher R. Hetner has been named Senior Advisor to the Chair for Cybersecurity Policy. In this role, Mr. Hetner will serve as a senior advisor to Chair Mary Jo White on all cybersecurity policy matters. In his new role, Mr. Hetner will be responsible for coordinating efforts across the agency to address cybersecurity policy, engaging with external stakeholders, and further enhancing the SEC’s mechanisms for assessing broad-based market risk. Mr. Hetner is the current Cybersecurity Lead for the Technology Control Program within the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations…
Read MoreBrokerage Firm Charged With Anti-Money Laundering Failures
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a Wall Street-based brokerage firm with failing to sufficiently evaluate or monitor customers’ trading for suspicious activity as required under the federal securities laws. An SEC investigation found that Albert Fried & Company failed to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) with bank regulators for more than five years despite red flags tied to its customers’ high-volume liquidations of low-priced securities. On more than one occasion, an AF&Co customer’s trading in a security on a given day exceeded 80 percent of the overall market volume. In other instances, customers were trading in stocks…
Read MoreSEC Adopts Amendment to Form 10-K Implementing FAST Act Provision
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced it has approved an interim final rule that allows Form 10-K filers to provide a summary of business and financial information contained in the annual report. The rule implements a provision of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. The interim final rule provides filers with flexibility in preparing the summary and those opting to provide it must include hyperlinks to the related, more detailed disclosure in the Form 10-K. It also requests comment on whether the rule should include specific requirements or guidance for the form and content of the summary…
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