Trump Media’s auditing firm, BF Borgers, busted for “massive fraud”

On May 3, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced an enforcement action against auditing firm BF Borgers CPA PC and its principal, Benjamin F. Borgers. The regulator charged the firm with “deliberate and systemic failures to comply… Read More

Ross Mandell Begins a New Life

Ross Mandell, a former broker and the owner of Sky Capital LLC and Sky Capital Holdings Ltd. was released from federal home confinement in early January of this year. He isn’t letting grass grow under his feet: he… Read More

Toxic Funders: Unregistered Dealers, Short Sellers, or Both?

We’ve often written about “toxic” promissory notes or preferred stock and the unregistered dealers who purchase them. These dealers are not the broker-dealers ordinary retail investors have accounts with. They are individuals with companies of their own that… Read More

Short Selling: What It Is, and What It Isn’t 

Short selling, the practice of betting a stock will go down, not up, has been controversial since it was invented more than 400 years ago in the Netherlands. In the early 1600s, there was only one stock in… Read More

Swiss Private Bank, Banque Pictet, Admits To Conspiring With U.S. Taxpayers To Hide Assets And Income In Offshore Accounts And Agrees to Pay More Than $122.9 Million

On December 4, 2023, Swiss private bank Banque Pictet et Cie SA admitted to conspiring with U.S. taxpayers and others to hide more than $5.6 billion in 1,637 secret bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere and to conceal… Read More

Why are Microcaps Trading on the NASDAQ and NYSE Exchanges?

In the past three years, some important changes have occurred to how “penny stocks” or “microcaps” trade and are regulated. By the early 2000s, they’d moved from the obscurity of the National Quotation Bureau’s Pink Sheets to a… Read More

FINRA Presents the Warning Signs of a Ramp and Dump Scheme

Just about everybody knows what a “pump-and-dump” scheme is. It’s a type of price manipulation where bad actors use falsified, heavily promoted news, financial statements or other marketing communications to increase volume and manipulate the market price of… Read More

Shell Hijacker, Mark Miller, Sentenced to One Year in Prison

On May 18, 2023, Mark Miller became the last of three men to be sentenced for a securities fraud scheme that involved hijacking several abandoned penny stocks, then using them for an illegal pump-and-dump stock manipulation scheme.  Miller… Read More

Gerald Shaw, a Disbarred Attorney and Convicted Felon, Arrested For Involvement In Multi-Million-Dollar Fraud Scheme

On Thursday, April 20, 2023, Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael J. Driscoll, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation… Read More

Former top FBI official Charles McGonigal arrested over ties to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska

Charles McGonigal, a former top counterintelligence official in the FBI’s New York Field Office, who retired from the FBI in 2018, has been arrested and charged in two separate cases involving his dealings with foreign operatives, including billionaire… Read More

Members of New Republican House Majority Seek to Rein in Gary Gensler   

A week before the 2022 midterm elections, the ranking members of four important committees of the House of Representatives composed and jointly signed a letter to Gary Gensler, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, demanding answers to… Read More

Class Action Lawsuit filed against Tom Brady, Stephen Curry and other Athletes and Celebrities that Promoted FTX

By now, most people have heard about the epic collapse of FTX. The crypto exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried (“SBF”) was once the 3rd largest crypto exchange, with an estimated valuation of $32 billion, and is now in… Read More

Nasdaq puts the brakes on IPOs of at least 4 small Chinese companies while it probes suspicious market activity

According to various internet reports, Nasdaq Inc has halted the initial public offerings (IPOs) of at least four small Chinese companies while it investigates short-lived stock rallies of other recent Chinese IPOs after going public. Several small Chinese… Read More

US and China reach deal in dispute over Chinese company audits

The China Securities Regulatory Commission  (CSRC) and U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) announced Friday that both sides signed an agreement to allow U.S. regulators to inspect the audits of Chinese companies whose stocks are traded on U.S…. 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

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

Two Jackson Men Charged in Multi-Million Dollar Fraud Scheme Conspiracy

On May 20, 2021, Ted Brent Alexander and Jon Darrell Seawright both of Jackson, Mississippi, were indicted by a federal grand jury for their roles in a large multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme that adversely affected hundreds of victims across multiple states over about eight years.

Robinhood Legal Battle Updates

The Securities and Exchange Commission case against Robinhood Financial moved one step closer to a payout when the SEC issued an Order appointing JND Legal Administration as the Fund Administrator of the Fair Fund established for the $65,000,000 that Robinhood Financial had agreed to pay on December 17, 2020.

Six Individuals Charged with a Multi-Million Dollar Scheme to Peddle Fraudulent Stocks

On Wednesday, April 7th, six South Florida residents were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that they defrauded investors of approximately $21 million by falsely claiming that the investors’ money would go towards the development of… Read More

Nine Individuals Indicted in Global Resource Energy Inc (GBEN) “Pump and Dump” Scheme

On December 17, 2020, the US Department of Justice unsealed an Indictment against nine individuals charged in a “pump and dump” stock manipulation scheme involving Global Resource Energy Inc (GBEN) filed in the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division.

Congress passes a Bill that forces Chinese stocks to meet US accounting standards

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation on Wednesday that would kick Chinese companies off U.S. stock exchanges if they do not fully comply with the U.S. auditing rules. 

Business Identity Theft: State of the Industry Report

As business owners, it’s important that you watch out for all of these forms of business identity theft. Your business, whether big or small, is vulnerable to all of these schemes, just by virtue of being in business.

Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson Charged with FCPA Violations

Swedish multinational corporation Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, better known as simply “Ericsson”, was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “with engaging in a large-scale bribery scheme involving the use of sham consultants to secretly funnel money to… Read More

FINRA Rule 6490 – FINRA Compliance and Rule 6490 Lawyers

Though FINRA’s principal mandate is to regulate broker-dealers, historically it has always exercised some oversight of the over-the-counter markets including all tiers of the OTC Markets. Part of that oversight involves processing corporate action requests from issuers of… Read More

Finra Investigates BNP Paribas

On October 24, 2019, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced a settled enforcement action involving BNP Paribas Securities Corp. and BNP Paribas Prime Brokerage, Inc.  A lengthy FINRA investigation found that although the firms did a brisk… Read More

Ross Mandell Seeks More Info Through FOIA

Ross Mandell was the founder of Sky Capital Holdings, Ltd., a venture capital firm and brokerage. He is currently serving a 12 year sentence for defrauding investors of over $100 million from 2001 to 2006. His case was… Read More

Shell Shocked – FBI Uses Receivership Shell In Sting

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have announced charges against five individuals, who the authorities allege  attempted to manipulate shares of Boston-based Amogear Inc.  A… Read More

Silence of the Lawyers – The Defense of Ross Mandell

Imagine you were a businessman whose company operated in New York and London, and whose stock traded on the AIM, the London Stock Exchange’s venture market.  One day in 2006, your New York offices are raided by the… Read More

What is FINRA Rule 6490? Going Public Lawyers

Complying with Rule 6490’s requirements may entail an unanticipated legal and compliance cost for  issuers and their securities attorneys, who may be unfamiliar with FINRA’s authority under 10b-17.  Additionally, many OTC Markets issuers are not prepared for the Depository Trust Company (“DTC”) review that may be prompted by the issuer’s corporate action notification.

FINRA Enforcement of Non-Members and Penny Stock Issuers

FINRA & Penny Stocks When the subject of penny stock enforcement actions arises, most people think first of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or erroneously, of OTC Markets Group (OTCM). The SEC has ultimate authority to deal with… Read More