On June 1, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it had brought charges in a Ponzi Scheme. According to the SEC Charges, the scheme was orchestrated by an investment adviser who took siphoned money from his investment fund and defrauded investors, including several local teachers and law enforcement officers.  The SEC complaint alleges that Phil Donnahue Williamson conducted a Ponzi scheme with money he raised for the Sterling Investment Fund, which purportedly invested in mortgages and properties in Florida and Georgia.  Read More

Over the past few weeks, we have had multiple requests from investors to review information they received after calls from boiler room sales persons. No doubt the increase in phone rooms has resulted from Rule 506(c) which allows generals solicitation of unregistered offerings if certain conditions are met, including that the issuer verify that all purchasers are “accredited investors”. Everyone who’s seen the movie “Boiler Room” is familiar with how these operations work; for once, the film makers had no need to exaggerate.  Real-life boiler rooms are run by unscrupulous con artists who hire cold callers to sell stocks and other securities to their naïve and unwary victims, using extremely high-pressure sales tactics.  Because of the large number of retirees in South Florida, its investors are prime targets for boiler room solicitations.

The classic boiler room is run by a broker-dealer that claims to be independent, specializing in stocks chosen by their “analysts,” who, they say, have conducted extensive due diligence on the issues.  In reality, the boiler room usually colludes with company management and/or insiders.  Often they own large blocks of stock obtained at very low prices; sometimes they paid nothing at all.  They will sell into their own promotion. Read More

On May 28, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission released the agenda for its Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies meeting which is scheduled for June 3. The SEC’s meeting will focus on public company disclosure effectiveness, intrastate crowdfunding, venture exchanges, and the treatment of “finders.” The SEC Advisory Committee also is expected to vote on a recommendation to the SEC with respect to the “Section 4(a)(1½) exemption,” which would allow shareholders to resell securities sold in private placements. The SEC meeting will be held at the SEC’s headquarters, and is open to the general public.

For further information about this securities law blog post, please contact Brenda Hamilton, Securities Attorney at 101 Plaza Real S, Suite 202 N, Boca Raton, Florida, (561) 416-8956, by email at [email protected] or visit www.securitieslawyer101.com.   This securities law blog post is provided as a general informational service to clients and friends of Hamilton & Associates Law Group and should not be construed as, and does not constitute, legal and compliance advice on any specific matter, nor does this message create an attorney-client relationship. Please note that the prior results discussed herein do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Hamilton & Associates | Securities Lawyers
Brenda Hamilton, Securities Attorney
101 Plaza Real South, Suite 202 North
Boca Raton, Florida 33432
Telephone: (561) 416-8956
Facsimile: (561) 416-2855
www.SecuritiesLawyer101.com

We’ve so far written twice about North Dakota Developments (“NDD”), a real estate Ponzi scheme operated by Daniel J. Hogan and Robert L. Gavin.  In the course of the scam, Gavin and Hogan, who are United Kingdom citizens, relieved investors of more than $62 million.  The pair persuaded their victims, many of them elderly and vulnerable, to purchase interests in “units” at what are called “man camps”–workers’ housing—in properties to be built in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota and Montana.

The interests purchased were not actual real estate, but securities.  The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) therefore had jurisdiction of them and of NDD and its managers Gavin and Hogan.  On May 5, 2015, it acted, obtaining a temporary restraining order against the company and the perpetrators.  Judge Daniel Hovland also ordered an asset freeze of the defendants’ bank accounts and those of other companies they controlled.  Read More

On May 13, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC”) announced that Douglas Parigian pled guilty to criminal charges of conspiracy and securities fraud for his role in an insider trading ring involving trading in the stock of American Superconductor Corporation. The criminal charges against Parigian arose out of the same fraudulent conduct alleged in an SEC action for securities fraud filed against Parigian and others in July 2014.

On July 9, 2014, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts indicted Parigian and another defendant, Eric McPhail, for conspiracy and securities fraud and, for Parigian only, lying to FBI agents. The U.S. Attorney charged that McPhail had a history, pattern and practice of sharing confidences with a senior executive at American Superconductor. Between 2009 and 2011, the senior executive provided McPhail with material, nonpublic information concerning the company’s quarterly earnings and other business activities (the “Inside Information”) with the understanding that it would be kept confidential. Read More

On May 5, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) obtained a temporary restraining order against North Dakota Developments, LLC (“NDD”), Robert L. Gavin and Daniel J. Hogan in connection with an elaborate real estate development Ponzi scheme that defrauded vulnerable investors of millions of dollars.  In addition, Judge Daniel Hovland ordered a freeze order of the assets held by the defendants and a number of other companies controlled by them.

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On May 15, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced charges and an emergency asset freeze in an alleged advance fee scam involving bogus prime bank instruments. The SEC complaint was filed on  May 11, 2015, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.  Advance fee scams solicit investors to make upfront payments before purported deals can go through, and perpetrators fool investors with official-sounding terminology to add an air of legitimacy to the investment programs.

According to the SEC’s complaint, which the Court unsealed yesterday at the SEC’s request, Thomas G. Ellis and Yasuo Oda, through their company, North Star Finance LLC, and Michael K. Martin and Sharon L. Salinas, through their companies, Capital Source Lending LLC and Capital Source Funding LLC, have collected approximately $5 million from defrauded investors since at least January 2013. Read More

On May 14, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that, Steven Palladino pled guilty to 25 counts of criminal contempt charged by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts based on his repeated violations of court orders obtained by the Commission in its civil action filed in 2013 against Palladino and his Massachusetts-based company, Viking Financial Group, Inc. (collectively, “Defendants”). The SEC action charged that Defendants were operating a fraudulent Ponzi scheme. The court in the SEC action entered orders with certain preliminary relief beginning in April 2013, including an asset freeze against Defendants. The U.S. Attorney alleged in April 2014 that Palladino knowingly and willfully disobeyed court orders in the Commission’s action that froze all of Defendants’ assets and required that Defendants deposit all funds in their possession into a court-ordered escrow account. Based on his guilty plea to these contempt charges, Palladino, who is currently serving a prison sentence based on convictions in state court for the same conduct alleged in the SEC charges in its case, could face additional incarceration. Read More

Moving with unusual speed, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) halted trading in Riviera Tool Company (RIVT) after the closing bell on May 7, 2015.  The action was a U3 Extraordinary Event halt.  In a U3, “trading is halted because FINRA has determined that an extraordinary event has occurred or is ongoing that has had a material effect on the market for the OTC Equity Security or the security underlying an OTC ADR or has caused or has the potential to cause major disruption to the marketplace or significant uncertainty in the settlement and clearance process.”  The halt may remain in place for up to 10 days, and can be extended beyond that should FINRA find reason to do so.
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The walls are closing in on former securities attorney John Briner.  In the past two months, he’s been criminally charged in the Provincial Court of British Columbia, sued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), and disciplined by the Law Society of British Columbia.  Briner’s new problems follow on a series of enforcement actions brought against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) in the United States.

John Briner’s troubles began in March 2006, when OTC Markets Group (then the Pink Sheets) added him to its Prohibited Attorney List.  The ban appears to have had to do with Briner’s role in a penny stock scam involving a company called Golden Apple Oil and Gas, Inc.  In September 2009, the SEC charged Golden Apple; Briner; Jay Budd, the company’s president; and Ethos Investments, Inc., a company controlled by Budd, with a number of securities violations.  Much earlier, in April 2006, the agency had issued a trading suspension of Golden Apple’s stock. Read More

On March 25, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) adopted amendments to Regulation A pursuant to the mandate of Section 401(a) of the JOBS Act. These amendments included revamping Form 1-A for Regulation A offerings.

Amended A+ was adopted to facilitate capital-raising by smaller companies. Regulation A+ expands existing Regulation A.  Regulation A+ offerings can be used in combination with direct public offerings and initial public offerings as part of a going public transaction.  The exemption simplifies the process of obtaining the seed stockholders required by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) while allowing the issuer to raise initial capital. Regulation A also provides issuers with the opportunity to test the waters using social media or their preliminary offering circular prior to qualification of their offering.

Form 1-A Offering Statements

Issuers using Regulation A+ to conduct their offerings must file and qualify an offering statement with the SEC. The offering statement is intended to be a disclosure document that is similar to Form S-1 with scaled down disclosures.  A notice of “qualification” is similar to a notice of effectiveness for a Form S-1 registration Statement. Read More

FINRA is proposing new rules that will impact algorithic trading strategies. If an individual performs a trade on another person’s behalf, that associated person is required to register with FINRA as an equity trader. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) believes that certain associated persons who are involved in creating automated systems should also be registered. FINRA recently issued Regulatory Notice 15-06 requesting comments on a new proposal that would require associated persons involved in the design, development or modification of algorithmic trading strategies to register with FINRA. This, says FINRA, will help ensure that trading programs comply with applicable securities laws.

The proposals are designed to increase the scope of trading information FINRA receives, provide market participants and investors with more transparency into trading activities, and require employees at firms engaged in electronic trading to be trained, educated, and accountable for their role in algorithmic trading strategies. Read More

On April 14, 2015, the operator of a website at Cashflowbot.com was charged in a ponzi scheme. According to the SEC charges, the perpetrator of the ponzi scheme raised money from more than 3,000 investors between January 2012 and April 2014. According to the SEC’s complaint, James A. Evans, Jr.,operated a website at “Cashflowbot.com,” and operated under the business name “DollarMonster”. According to the SEC action, Evans falsely promoted DollarMonster as a “private fund” with an “opaque investment strategy” where investors could make “big profits.”

According to the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, Evans was running a ponzi scheme. Among other things, Evans misrepresented to investors that DollarMonster: (a) paid out investment returns that exceeded the amount of money investors had contributed to the fund; (b) was a “financial advisor” with more than 120 management teams and $38 million in assets under management; (c) managed a hedge fund that purchased stocks on behalf of investors in the fund; (d) was a “Private Holding Company” that invested in assets such as gold, silver, real estate, stocks and bonds, and (e) had used investor funds to profitably invest in stocks with a market value of $3.2 million. Read More

On March 25, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) adopted amendments to Regulation A pursuant to the mandate of Section 401(a) of the JOBS Act. Amended Regulation A known as “Regulation A+”, expands and modernizes former Regulation A, creating a manageable capital raising solution for small businesses. Prior to the amendments, Regulation A, offerings by an issuer could not exceed $5 million in any 12-month period. Unlike shares offered and/or sold in offerings exempt under Rule 506 of Regulation D, securities issued in Regulation A offerings were not “covered securities” under the National Securities Markets Improvement Act (“NSMIA”).   Read More

On April 9, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Big Apple Consulting USA Inc., MJMM Investments, LLC, Marc Jablon and Mark Kaley, case number 13-11976.

The appellate panel affirmed the district court’s ruling in its entirety.

In 2009, the SEC filed suit against Big Apple, MJMM, a Big Apple subsidiary, Marc Jablon, Mark Kaley, Keith Jablon, and Matthew Maguire, alleging fraud, registration violations, and, with respect to Big Apple and MJMM, acting as unregistered broker-dealers.  The agency further charged Marc Jablon, Maguire, and Kaley, an attorney, with aiding and abetting the two entities’ violations.  Read More

The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) announced that on April 7, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a final judgment against Jonathan E. Bryant which ordered him to pay $3,168,184.70 in connection with his role as the Chief Executive Officer of 8000, Inc., a defunct former penny stock issuer. The SEC Action alleges that, in 2009 and 2010, Bryant directed a scheme to inflate 8000, Inc.’s stock price while secretly controlling a majority of the company’s shares and directing its operations.

In addition to Bryant, the SEC action also charged 8000, Inc’s former Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Kelly, and its securities attorney, Carl N. Duncan. The SEC action alleged that Jonathan Bryant, Carl Duncan and Thomas  Kelly took part in a scheme to manipulate the trading volume and price of 8000 Inc.’s common stock by disseminating false information about the company and simultaneously selling or facilitating the sale of its securities which were not supposed to be for sale to the general public. Read More

On April 10, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) charged Mieka Energy Corporation, and its founder and president Daro Ray Blankenship, with fraudulently offering oil and gas investments. Two of Mieka’s salesmen, Robert William Myers, Jr. and Stephen Romo, were charged with acting as unregistered brokers.

The SEC action also charged Mieka’s publicly traded parent company, Vadda Energy Corporation, with fraud and reporting violations for deceptively touting the success of Mieka’s investments. The SEC action alleges that, between September 2010 and October 2011, Blankenship and Mieka raised $4.4 million from approximately 60 investors by selling interests in joint ventures that were to drill and complete two gas wells. Read More

On March 6, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced that the United States District Court of New Jersey entered a judgment against Michael M. Cohen. Cohen received a lifetime officer-director bar, lifetime penny stock bar and an injunction prohibiting him from violating certain provisions of the federal securities laws.

The District Court’s judgment, which was entered by consent, permanently enjoined Cohen from violating Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933; Sections 10(b) and 13(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”); Rules 10b-5, 13a-14, and 13b2-1 thereunder; and from aiding and abetting violations of Sections 13(a), 13(b)(2)(A), and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Exchange Act, and Rules 12b-20, 13a-1, and 13a-13 thereunder. Read More

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) recently approved Rule 2040 proposed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) which applies to the payment of transaction based compensation to unregistered persons by member firms.  Rule 2040 will allow member firms to pay fees, concessions, discounts, commissions or other allowances to unregistered persons if the member firm determines the unregistered person’s activities do not require registration as a broker-dealer.

Support for the determination of whether registration is required can be derived by reasonably relying on previously published releases, no-action letters or SEC staff interpretations, seeking a no-action letter from the SEC, or obtaining a legal opinion from an independent securities attorney. Read More