SEC Monitoring Impact of Hurricane Helene on Capital Markets
Washington D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission is closely monitoring the impact of Hurricane Helene on investors and capital markets. The SEC divisions and offices that oversee companies, accountants, investment advisers, mutual funds, brokerage firms, transfer agents, and other regulated entities and investment professionals will continue to closely track developments. They will evaluate the possibility of granting relief from filing deadlines...
2024-09-27 4:44 PM EDT
SEC Adopts Improvements to EDGAR System to Enhance Security, Filer Access, and Account Management
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today adopted rule and form amendments intended to enhance the security of its Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system and improve filers’ access and account management capabilities. “The public and the SEC long have benefited from the EDGAR electronic filing system,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “Today’s amendments are an important next step for EDGAR account access...
2024-09-27 3:46 PM EDT
SEC Charges Entities Operating Crypto Asset Trading Platform Mango Markets for Unregistered Offers and Sales of the Platform's "MNGO" Governance Tokens
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed settled charges against Mango DAO and Blockworks Foundation for engaging in the unregistered offer and sale of crypto assets called “MNGO” tokens. The SEC also settled charges against Blockworks Foundation and Mango Labs LLC for engaging in unregistered broker activity in connection with various crypto assets being offered and sold as securities on the Mango Markets platform. The SEC’s...
2024-09-27 2:47 PM EDT
SEC Charges U.K. Citizen in Hacking and Trading Scheme Involving Five U.S. Public Companies
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against U.K. citizen Robert B. Westbrook for hacking into the computer systems of five U.S. public companies to obtain material nonpublic information about their corporate earnings and using that information to make approximately $3.75 million in illicit profits by trading in advance of the companies’ public earnings announcements. The SEC’s complaint, filed on September...
2024-09-27 1:38 PM EDT
Richard R. Best Named Senior Advisor to the Director of the Division of Examinations
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 27, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Richard R. Best, the Director of the Division of Examinations, will transition to an advisory role as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Division of Examinations once he returns from medical leave. Keith E. Cassidy will continue serving as the Division’s Acting Director, a role he began in July. “The Division of Examinations serves a critical role in helping firms to comply...
2024-09-27 1:06 PM EDT
SEC Charges Cassava Sciences, Two Former Executives for Misleading Claims About Alzheimer's Clinical Trial
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced Cassava Sciences, Inc., its founder and former CEO, Remi Barbier, and its former Senior Vice President of Neuroscience, Dr. Lindsay Burns, will pay more than $40 million to settle charges related to misleading statements made in September 2020 about the results of a Phase 2 clinical trial for the company’s purported therapeutic for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. In a related...
2024-09-26 6:14 PM EDT
SEC Charges Advisory Firm GQG Partners With Violating Whistleblower Protection Rule
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against Florida-based GQG Partners LLC, a registered investment adviser, for entering into agreements with candidates for employment and a former employee that made it more difficult for them to report potential securities law violations to the SEC. According to the SEC’s order, from November 2020 through September 2023, GQG entered into non-disclosure agreements...
2024-09-26 4:50 PM EDT
SEC Charges DraftKings with Selectively Disclosing Nonpublic Information Via CEO's Social Media Accounts
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged DraftKings Inc. with selectively disclosing material, nonpublic information to investors who followed or otherwise viewed the company CEO’s social media accounts without disclosing that same information to all investors, in violation of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD). DraftKings agreed to pay a $200,000 civil penalty to settle the SEC’s charges. The order finds that, on July 27,...
2024-09-26 4:37 PM EDT
SEC Levies More Than $3.8 Million in Penalties in Sweep of Late Beneficial Ownership and Insider Transaction Reports
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 25, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against 23 entities and individuals for failures to timely report information about their holdings and transactions in public company stock. Two public companies were also charged for contributing to filing failures by their officers and directors and failing to report their insiders’ filing delinquencies as required. The charges announced today stem from SEC...
2024-09-25 4:22 PM EDT
SEC Charges Merrill Lynch and Harvest Volatility Management for Ignoring Client Instructions
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 25, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Harvest Volatility Management LLC and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. for exceeding clients’ designated investment limits over a two-year period beginning in March 2016, which resulted in clients paying higher fees, being subjected to increased market exposure, and incurring investment losses. As part of the separate settlements, Harvest and Merrill have...
2024-09-25 9:23 AM EDT
SEC Charges Former CEO of Tech Startup SKAEL with $30 Million Fraud
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 24, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against Baba Nadimpalli, the co-founder and former CEO of SKAEL Inc., a San Francisco-based private technology company that developed business automation software. According to the SEC’s complaint, from January 2021 through February 2022, Nadimpalli raised more than $30 million from investors by falsely claiming that SKAEL had millions of dollars in annually recurring...
2024-09-24 3:47 PM EDT
SEC Charges Crypto Companies TrustToken and TrueCoin With Defrauding Investors Regarding Stablecoin Investment Program
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 24, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against TrueCoin LLC and TrustToken Inc. for their fraudulent and unregistered sales of investment contracts involving TrueUSD (TUSD), a purported stablecoin. According to the SEC’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, TrueCoin was an issuer of TUSD and TrustToken was the developer and operator of TrueFi, a so-called...
2024-09-24 1:56 PM EDT
Eleven Firms to Pay More Than $88 Million Combined to Settle SEC's Charges for Widespread Recordkeeping Failures
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 24, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against 12 firms, comprising broker-dealers, investment advisers, and one dually-registered broker-dealer and investment adviser, for widespread and longstanding failures by the firms and their personnel to maintain and preserve electronic communications in violation of recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws. The firms admitted the facts set forth in their...
2024-09-24 9:22 AM EDT
Advisory Firm Atom Investors, Charged with Recordkeeping Violations, Avoids Civil Penalty Because of Self-Reporting, Substantial Cooperation, and Prompt Remediation
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 23, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Texas-based registered investment adviser Atom Investors LP for its failure to maintain and preserve off-channel communications in violation of the recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws. The Commission did not impose a penalty because Atom Investors self-reported the conduct, promptly remediated the violations, and provided substantial cooperation...
2024-09-23 3:11 PM EDT
SEC to Hold Virtual National Compliance Outreach Seminar for Investment Companies and Investment Advisers
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 20, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Compliance Outreach Program announced today that it will host a virtual national seminar for investment companies and investment advisers on Nov. 7, 2024. This seminar is intended to help Chief Compliance Officers and other senior personnel at investment companies and investment advisory firms enhance their compliance programs for the protection of investors. The conference will include panel...
2024-09-20 10:48 AM EDT
Small Business Forum's Report to Congress Highlights Recommendations to Improve Capital Raising
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 19, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today released a report to Congress summarizing policy recommendations made during the SEC’s 43rd Annual Small Business Forum. The report provides a summary of the forum proceedings, including the recommendations developed by participants for changes to the capital raising framework and the Commission’s responses to those recommendations. The forum took place over three virtual sessions on April...
2024-09-19 3:31 PM EDT
SEC Charges Advisory Firm Macquarie Investment Management Business Trust with Fraud
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 19, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced registered investment adviser Macquarie Investment Management Business Trust (MIMBT) will pay a total of $79.8 million to settle charges for overvaluing approximately 4,900 largely illiquid collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) held in 20 advisory accounts, including 11 retail mutual funds, and for executing hundreds of cross trades between advisory clients that favored...
2024-09-19 11:44 AM EDT
SEC Charges Advisory Firm Inspire Investing With Misleading Investors Regarding its Investment Strategy
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 19, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Idaho-based investment adviser Inspire Investing LLC with making misleading statements and for compliance failures related to the execution of its “biblically responsible investing” strategy. According to the SEC’s order, Inspire Investing represented that it used a data-driven methodology to evaluate companies and that it would not invest in companies that had “any degree of...
2024-09-19 11:12 AM EDT
SEC Charges DeFi Platform Rari Capital and its Founders With Misleading Investors and Acting as Unregistered Brokers
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 18, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against Rari Capital, Inc., a supposed decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, and its co-founders, Jai Bhavnani, Jack Lipstone, and David Lucid, for misleading investors and engaging in unregistered broker activity in connection with their operation of two blockchain-based investment platforms that, at their peak, collectively held crypto assets worth more than $1...
2024-09-18 3:20 PM EDT
SEC Adopts Rules to Amend Minimum Pricing Increments and Access Fee Caps and to Enhance the Transparency of Better Priced Orders
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 18, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today adopted amendments to certain rules under Regulation NMS to adopt an additional minimum pricing increment, or “tick size,” for the quoting of certain NMS stocks, reduce the access fee caps for protected quotations of trading centers, increase the transparency of exchange fees and rebates, and accelerate the implementation of rules that will make information about the market’s best priced,...
2024-09-18 12:10 PM EDT