SEC

The USA's Securities and Exchange Commission has issued proceedings against Jose Luis Casero Sanchez alleging insider trading. That's not the interesting stuff.

The USA's Securities and Investment Commission has issued proceedings against Sky Group USA LLC, a payday loan company based in Miami, and its CEO, Efrain Betancourt, Jr. alleging fraud in the issue of some USD66 million of promissory notes, primarily within the Venezuelan community in what the SEC calls "affinity fraud" but which we have for several decades referred to as "intra-community fraud."

Blotics Ltd., a UK publisher, has agreed a settlement with US regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission arising from the publication of articles about initial coin offerings. The articles were "accessible in the United States." But there's more and the case raises more questions than it answers.

From an SEC press notice, 13th July 2021 (slightly edited)

"The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced [proceedings] against special purpose acquisition corporation Stable Road Acquisition Company, its sponsor SRC-NI, its CEO Brian Kabot, the SPAC’s proposed merger target Momentus Inc., and Momentus’ founder and former CEO Mikhail Kokorich [alleging] misleading claims about Momentus’ technology and about national security risks associated with Kokorich. "

One would have thought that Initial Coin Offerings had been a flash in the pan and already out of fashion. And that may, to a point, be so: their heyday was, of course, three or four years ago.

But the essential problem seems to be that things take a while to filter through so that, when stories reactivate interest, everything old becomes new again, to coin a phrase. So the news that a case relating to conduct in 2017 and 2018 may be the spark that reignites burning embers as some people remember the concept of the ICO and think "that might be a way to help my business that's struggling through the CoVid-19 Pandemic.

They call it "financial exploitation of seniors" and refer to "World Elder Abuse Awareness Day" but cut through the froth and the Securities and Exchange Commission, The North American Securities Administrators' Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority have started something useful at a time when the elderly are increasingly vulnerable to both actual frauds and misunderstandings caused by rapidly-changing financial environment.

Morningstar has been mounting a persistent advertising campaign on LinkedIn recently. It it, it promotes its due diligence services. An announcement by the USA's Securities and Exchange Commission raises several questions, not the least of which is "who or what is Morningstar"?

This press release from the USA's Securities and Investment Commission is about an old-fashioned (alleged) fund management fraud in which crypto-assets were the hook by which investors were encouraged to put money into a scheme which was not, says the SEC, what the promoters said it was.