In SEC v. Sayid, No. 17 Civ. 2630 (JFK), 2018 BL 9039 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 10, 2018), the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York denied securities lawyer Norman T. Reynolds’ (“Reynolds”) motion to dismiss a Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) complaint for failure to state a claim. The SEC alleged Reynolds wrote misleading opinion letters for Mustafa David Sayid (“Sayid”), the legal counsel for Nouveau Holdings Ltd. and Striper Energy, Inc. (collectively, the “Shells”), which opinion letters Sayid used to engage in market manipulation. The court found that the SEC adequately alleged facts that constitute strong circumstantial evidence of Reynolds’ conscious misbehavior.
Read MoreIn SEC v. Mapp, No. 4:16-CV-00246, 2017 BL 401498 (E.D. Tex. Nov. 8, 2017), the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted in part and denied in part the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) motion for summary judgment and denied William E. Mapp’s (“Defendant”) partial motion for summary judgment.
According to the allegations, Defendant raised approximately $26 million in private securities offerings as CEO for Servergy, Inc., (“Servergy”) from November 2009 to September 2013. Defendant received over $1.4 million in investments from Caleb White (“White”) through Dominion Joint Venture Group No. 1, 2, and 3 (collectively “Dominion JVs”). Servergy also secured $19.4 million from broker dealer WFG Investments, Inc. (“WFG”). Severgy did not file a registration statement for any of its securities offerings.
Read MoreIn SEC v. Cary, No. 8:17-cv-01649, 2017 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 21, 2017), the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed a complaint against Justin Samuel Cary (“Cary”) in the United States District Court for the Central District of California for alleged violations of the Securities Exchange Act Section 10(b) (“§ 10b”) and Rules 10b-5(a) and 10b-5(c) promulgated thereunder.
According to the complaint, Cary, a certified public accountant, worked as a consultant for NOW CFO, an accounting outsourcing firm. NOW CFO placed Cary as a consultant with Adaptive Medias from March 2013 through March 2016. Cary prepared financial statements for Adaptive Medias that were filed with the SEC, and acted as Adaptive Medias’ point of contact for its independent auditors.
Read MoreIn SEC v. Riel, No. 5:15-CV-1166 (MAD/DEP), 2017 BL 342140 (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 27, 2017), the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York granted in part and denied in part the Security Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) motion for summary judgment against Charles Riel III (“Riel”), and granted the SEC’s motion for default judgment against REinvest, LLC (“REinvest”) (collectively “Defendants”), for Defendants’ violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 (“Securities Act”), and Riel’s alleged violations of Sections 20(a) and 20(e) of the Exchange Act, and Section 15(b) of the Securities Act.
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