Tagged: enforcement

December 12, 2016 @ 10:40 pm By JD Alois  |  

Equidate has settled with the SEC for selling unregistered swaps involving pre-IPO companies. The San Francisco-based Fintech firm agreed to settle the charges it had violated federal securities laws by failing to register security-based swaps that were sold online to shareholders in pre-IPO companies. Equidate stopped offering security-based… Read More

December 12, 2016 @ 8:45 am By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that Enforcement Director Andrew J. Ceresney will depart the agency by the end of the year. Ceresney has been with the SEC for four years as the head of SEC Enforcement – the largest division of the… Read More

November 9, 2016 @ 2:34 pm By JD Alois  |  

uFundingPortal, a Regulation CF crowdfunding platform that was, until recently, a regulated and FINRA approved platform has been shut down. Today, the site is gone and has been removed from the list of FINRA approved platforms indicative of some sort of transgression regulators could not tolerate…. Read More

October 4, 2016 @ 3:08 pm By JD Alois  |  

A federal court has sided with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) imposing a record $1.3 billion fine against race car driver Scott A. Tucker and his associates affiliated with AMG Payday Lending. Tucker also faces a criminal trial in New York, according to the Kansas… Read More

October 1, 2016 @ 3:37 pm By JD Alois  |  

Brian Korn, a prominent attorney in the alternative finance sector, says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is on the offensive. Korn pointed to recent settlements with LendUp and CashCall as indicative of its aggressive approach towards financial service enforcement. At the end of 2013,… Read More

September 30, 2016 @ 8:06 am By JD Alois  |  

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has ordered LendUp to pay approximately $1.83 million in refunds and pay a civil penalty of $1.8 million. The enforcement action was taken as the “online lender did not help consumers build credit or access cheaper loans” as the… Read More

September 29, 2016 @ 9:02 am By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has “temporarily suspended” the Regulation A+ offer by Med-X listed on StartEngine.  Med-X is a company is an entrepreneurial cannabis startup that is seeking up to $15 million in equity. The SEC order said the Med-X’s Tier 2 Reg A+ offer,… Read More

September 19, 2016 @ 12:56 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has slapped down CFO Lending, a payday loan firm, for unfair lending practices.  CFO Lending also operated as Payday First, Flexible First, Money Resolve, Paycfo, Payday Advance and Payday Credit. According to the FCA, CFO Lending will provide over £34… Read More

September 8, 2016 @ 12:00 pm By Anthony Zeoli  |  

In connection with a private offering of securities the issuer will provide potential investors with some form of disclosure document. Regardless of what type of offering it is (e.g. Rule 506, Title III, Intrastate, or other private offering), the intent of this disclosure document is… Read More

August 20, 2016 @ 7:19 pm By JD Alois  |  

The case of the Ascenergy crowdfunding fraud came to light just as Reg CF or Title III crowdfunding rules were announced to the public in October of 2015.   Ascenergy, an aspiring oil and gas operation, had raised about $5 million from approximately 90 investors,… Read More

April 22, 2016 @ 7:23 am By JD Alois  |  

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed suit in federal court against co-founders who allegedly sold consumer loan applications without appropriate safeguards.  The loans were said to be sold containing sensitive personal data without assessing the sources of the leads nor the purchasers they sold… Read More

March 31, 2016 @ 9:11 am By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled charges with infamous VC – G. Steven Burrill regarding a case where Burrill allegedly stole investor money to pay for private jets and trips to Paris and St. Barts. Burrill was sued last year in the Superior Court of… Read More

March 27, 2016 @ 9:46 pm By JD Alois  |  

The SEC Enforcement division shut down an allegedly bogus operation run by John Bivona based in New Jersey. Bivona, via Saddle River Advisors and SRA Management Associates, raised money from unsuspecting investors promising access to pre-IPO tech companies in the San Francisco bay area.  According… Read More

March 10, 2016 @ 3:55 pm By JD Alois  |  

Enforcement is how the bulk of the Securities and Exchange Commission spends their budget and much of their time. There will always be a never-ending trail of ne’er-do-wells and scoundrels looking for an opportunity to separate hard-earned money from good people via duplicitous means. High… Read More

March 7, 2016 @ 4:00 am By Scott Andersen  |  

The recent economic downturn is not the only challenge for entrepreneurs in the EB-5 and JOBS Act industries.  Rather, the challenges include close regulatory scrutiny by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Division of Enforcement.  While both EB-5 and the JOBS Act were… Read More

November 6, 2015 @ 10:35 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against alleged rogue trader James Alan Craig of Dunragit, Scotland.  Apparently Craig was a bit cocky too, as he tweeted that the SEC would not be able to track him down.  The SEC has used their own Twitter… Read More

November 2, 2015 @ 4:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

Lost in all of the excitement of last weeks’ announcement from the SEC on Title III crowdfunding rules was a case of crowdfunding fraud.  According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency halted a “fraudulent oil and gas crowdfunding scheme”.  The SEC has frozen… Read More

September 17, 2015 @ 4:21 pm By JD Alois  |  

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has told SanFrancisco based Derivabit (aka Coinflip) to cease operating as a trading platform for processing swaps in Bitcoin.  This is the first action against an unregistered Bitcoin options trading platform and draws a line for other possible derivative cryptocurrency platforms. Coinflip and… Read More

June 17, 2015 @ 7:27 pm By JD Alois  |  

The SEC has announced the conclusion of an investigation regarding Silicon Valley based Sand Hill Exchange, a firm that was apparently selling security based swaps to retail investors without a necessary registration statement and outside a national exchange. Sand Hill Exchange settled without admitting or… Read More

December 8, 2014 @ 3:46 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission has shut down two online virtual currency trading platforms that were creating markets in Bitcoin and Litecoin.    The sites were cited as operating without registering as broker-dealers or stock exchanges.  The sites were actually turned off in late 2013… Read More