SEC Charges Sung Kook (Bill) Hwang and Archegos Capital Management

On April 27, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Sung Kook (Bill) Hwang, the owner of family office Archegos Capital Management, LP (Archegos), with orchestrating a fraudulent scheme that resulted in billions of dollars in losses. The… Read More

Resales of Restricted Securities By Non-Affiliates

Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), requires that all offers and sales of securities be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) or exempt from SEC registration. When shares have… Read More

SEC Charges 15 Individuals in a $194 Million International Penny Stock Fraud

  The Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against 16 defendants, located in the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Monaco, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, for participating in multi-year fraudulent penny stock… Read More

What Is the OTC Markets Expert Market? Securities Lawyer Blog

Quotes of securities in the Expert Market are “Unsolicited Only,” which means that trades of securities subject to unsolicited quotation in the Expert Market are only available to broker-dealers, institutions and other sophisticated investors, and not average investors.   

SEC Charges Anthony Salandra in Market Manipulation Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Anthony Salandra, for his role in a market manipulation scheme in which he and several other individuals created false rumors about public companies in order to profitably trade around… Read More

SEC Obtains Final Judgments from Chrysilios Chrysiliou and Panagiotis Bolovis for Their Roles in $45 Million Fraudulent Scheme

On April 4, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered final judgments against Chrysilios Chrysiliou and Panagiotis Bolovis for their respective roles in a fraudulent scheme to gain control of Airborne Wireless… Read More

Old School Ties: Donald Trump Sues Hillary Clinton and Many of Her “Cohorts”

On March 24, 2022, as an anxious world hoped for positive results from a NATO meeting convened to address the ongoing war in Ukraine, former President Donald Trump sought to redress the harm he believes was done to… Read More

FINRA Extended Hearing Panel Expels Alpine Securities and Orders $2.3 Million in Restitution

On March 24th, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) announced that a FINRA extended hearing panel has expelled Salt Lake City-based broker-dealer Alpine Securities Corp from FINRA membership and ordered the firm to pay more than $2.3 million in… Read More

Undercover Sting Takes Down Francis Biller, Raymond Dove, and Chester Alvarez in Boiler Room Scheme

On March 15, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) announced charges against five individuals for allegedly operating a call center in Medellin, Colombia, which used high-pressure sales tactics and made false and misleading statements to retail… Read More

Attorney Andrew Coldicutt faces SEC charges after getting caught in an FBI sting

On March 1, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) announced fraud charges against San Diego-based attorney Andrew T.E. Coldicutt for his role in a would-be pump-and-dump scheme. According to the complaint, the charges arise in part… Read More

SEC Obtains Final Judgment Against Former Pharmaceutical Company CEO Martin Shkreli

On February 23, 2022, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered a final judgment against Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Retrophin, Inc., a publicly-traded pharmaceutical company. The Court granted in its… Read More

SEC Charges Michael M Beck (aka BigMoneyMike) with Penny Stock Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Michael M. Beck for using his Twitter handle, @BigMoneyMike6, to deceive investors into buying penny stocks that he recommended, even though he secretly planned to sell those stocks and, in some cases,… Read More

SEC Proposes Faster Trade Settlement Times

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted on Wednesday to propose rule changes to reduce risks in the clearance and settlement of securities, including by shortening the standard settlement cycle for most broker-dealer transactions in securities from two business… Read More

SEC Wins Summary Judgment Against Unregistered Penny Stock Dealer Justin W Keener

On January 21, 2022, Judge Beth Bloom of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted the SEC’s motion for summary judgment against Justin W. Keener d/b/a JMJ Financial. The SEC’s complaint alleged that… Read More

Paul Pelosi Jr’s Adventures in Pennyland

In mid-January 2022, British tabloid the Daily Mail published a long story about U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul Jr, in which it was alleged that he’d been involved in a number of shady businesses, some of… Read More

SEC Charges Securities Fraud Recidivist Phillip W. Offill, Jr. and Justin W. Herman in Penny Stock Fraud Scheme

On January 19, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged securities fraud recidivist Phillip W. Offill, Jr. and Justin W. Herman (a former FINRA registered broker) with misappropriating and selling millions of shares of a penny stock company using… Read More

Christopher R. Esposito Charged with Securities Fraud

On January 7, 2022, Christopher R. Esposito, 55, of Everett, was charged and has agreed to plead guilty to one count of securities fraud. Esposito, the sole officer and director of Massachusetts marketing firm Code2Action Inc, was charged… Read More

SEC Commissioners Differ on Key Policies

Just before the end of 2021, Elad L. Roisman, one of the SEC’s five Commissioners, announced his resignation, effective at the end of January 2022. In a statement posted on the agency’s website, he said: Serving the American… Read More

Five Russians Charged in Hacking and Illegal Trading Scheme

On December 20, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against five Russian nationals for engaging in a multi-year scheme to profit from stolen corporate earnings announcements obtained by hacking into the systems of two U.S.-based… Read More

More Individuals Charged in Billion Dollar Penny Stock Pump and Dump/Money Laundering Operation

On Thursday, December 9th, three more Canadian citizens were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of what has been described as a long-running global pump and dump scheme that collectively generated over a billion dollars… Read More

SEC Charges Robert Gandy and Others in 3(a)(10) Penny Stock Scheme

On November 9, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged four individuals and their companies, including a securities fraud recidivist, with scheming to issue free-trading shares of two penny stock companies through the use of bogus documents in… Read More

Amended Rule 15c2-11 is Bad News for Shell Vendors

Though nearly two months have passed since compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s amended Rule 15c2-11 became mandatory on September 28, 2021, the OTC marketplace is still reeling from the effects of its implementation. The new rule… Read More

Court Says Toxic Note is Usurious

Over the past few years, we’ve written frequently about so-called “toxic lenders” engaged in unregistered dealer activity and the toll their loans take on struggling over-the-counter companies. Nearly all of these companies need financing for operations, research and… Read More

Steven Gallagher Arrested And Charged With Securities Fraud For Using His Twitter Account To Operate A Pump-And-Dump Scheme

On Tuesday, October 26th, Steven Gallagher 50, of Maumee, Ohio, was arrested and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and market manipulation. According to the Complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, Gallagher created a stock promotion account on… Read More

Will Small Cap Investors Embrace Donald Trump’s DWAC? The latest Reddit Meme Stock

Since the fall of 2019, we’ve written a number of times about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s amendments to Rule 15c2-11, which, most importantly, require over-the-counter stocks to provide “current information” to the public. Since the end of… Read More

Federal Jury Convicts Defendants In NuTech Energy Resources Securities Fraud

On Wednesday, October 13, 2021, a federal jury in Cheyenne returned guilty verdicts against a Pennsylvania man and two Florida men related to a stock fraud involving NuTech Energy Resources Inc., a company that claimed to operate coalbed-methane… Read More

SEC Charges Webcast Host Mark Melnick for His Role in Market Manipulation Scheme

On September 30, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) announced charges against Mark Melnick, a day trader and T3 Live Senior Trading Strategist for spreading more than 100 false rumors about public companies in order to… Read More

SEC Obtains Emergency Relief Against Richard Xia Charged with EB-5 Securities Fraud

On September 28, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) announced that it filed an emergency action and obtained an asset freeze, among other relief, against Richard Xia (aka Yi Xia) and his company, Fleet New York… Read More

SEC Sues Carebourn Capital, L.P. and Its Managing Partner Chip Rice for Acting as an Unregistered Securities Dealer

On September 24, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) charged Carebourn Capital, L.P. and its managing partner Chip Rice of Maple Grove, Minnesota, with acting as unregistered securities dealers in connection with their buying and selling of… Read More

Section 12(j) – SEC Termination of Registration, Revocation and Trading Suspensions

Proceedings under Section 12(j) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, (the “Exchange Act”) are frequently initiated when an SEC reporting company has failed to comply with its SEC reporting requirements. Section 12(j) authorizes the SEC to revoke… Read More