SEC

Washington, D.C., Nov. 17, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two former Silicon Valley executives for improperly inflating the reported financial results at Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor company Tvia, Inc.    » read more »

November 17, 2009 -- WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Eric Holder, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairwoman Mary Schapiro today announced that President Barack Obama has established by Executive Order an interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to strengthen efforts to combat financial crime.    » read more »

Washington, D.C., Nov. 16, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged four individuals and two companies involved in perpetrating a $30 million Ponzi scheme in which they persuaded more than 300 investors nationwide to participate in purported environmentally-friendly investment opportunities.

The SEC alleges that Wayde and Donna McKelvy, who were previously married and living in the Denver area, particularly targeted elderly investors or those approaching retirement age to finance such "green" initiatives of Pennsylvania-based Mantria Corporation as a supposed "carbon negative" housing community in rural Tennessee and a "biochar" charcoal substitute made from organic waste.    » read more »

Washington, D.C., Nov. 13, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two computer programmers for their role in helping convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard L. Madoff cover up the fraud at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BMIS) for more than 15 years.

The SEC alleges that Jerome O'Hara of Malverne, N.Y., and George Perez of East Brunswick, N.J., provided the technical support necessary to produce false documents and trading records, and took hush money to help keep the scheme going.    » read more »

Washington, D.C., Nov. 10, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged the former chief financial officer of a New York-based hedge fund with securities fraud for arranging secret sales of securities from his personal trading account to the hedge fund accounts at inflated prices to generate his own illicit profits.    » read more »

November 3, 2009 -- PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), and PATRICIA J. HAYNES, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS"), announced today that DAVID G. FRIEHLING, the accountant for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC ("BLMIS"), pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court before United States District Judge ALVIN K. HELLERSTEIN.    » read more »

Washington, D.C., Nov. 5, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a pair of lawyers for tipping inside information in exchange for kickbacks as well as six Wall Street traders and a proprietary trading firm involved in a $20 million insider trading scheme.    » read more »

Hedge Fund Managers, Professional Traders and Senior Corporate Executive Among Newly Charged in $33 Million Scheme

Washington, D.C., Nov. 5, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced additional charges in its insider trading enforcement action against billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and Galleon Management LP by charging 13 additional individuals and entities, including three hedge fund managers, three professional traders at New York-based Schottenfeld Group, and a senior executive at Atheros Communications, a California-based developer of networking technologies.    » read more »

Senator says failure to address market structure issues could mean systemic risk

November 5, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a speech on the Senate floor today, Senator Ted Kaufman continued his push for more regulatory oversight of the U.S. equity markets by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As Kaufman noted, “just over one year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers ... Wall Street is essentially unchanged.” Not only are the same practices that led to the financial debacle 14 months ago still present, but the market is increasingly dominated by “new practices which are leading to new problems and new systemic risks.”

The danger, Kaufman warns, is that with no immediate crisis at hand, it is all too easy to slip back into complacency.    » read more »

Washington, D.C., Oct. 30, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged the former chief financial officer of a San Francisco private investment firm and six of his relatives and friends with insider trading, alleging that their scheme collectively reaped more than $8 million in illicit profits from unlawful trades in the securities of Tempur-pedic International, Inc. and Acxiom Corporation.    » read more »

High-Ranking Corporate Executives Also Charged in Scheme That Generated More Than $25 Million in Illicit Gains

Washington, D.C., Oct. 16, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and his New York-based hedge fund advisory firm Galleon Management LP with engaging in a massive insider trading scheme that generated more than $25 million in illicit gains. The SEC also charged six others involved in the scheme, including senior executives at major companies IBM, Intel and McKinsey & Company.    » read more »

Washington, D.C., Oct. 5, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it has approved new exchange rules for breaking stock trades that deviate so substantially from current market prices that they are considered “clearly erroneous.” The rules would for the first time provide a consistent standard across stock exchanges and reduce uncertainty about what happens to a trade depending on where it is executed.

“Adopting consistent standards across exchanges for breaking trades will strengthen the resiliency of our markets by reducing the potential for market confusion, especially during periods of high market volatility,” said SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro. “These changes will promote the orderly and efficient operation of our markets.”    » read more »

Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today unanimously proposed a rule amendment that would prohibit the practice of flashing marketable orders.

A flash order enables a person who has not publicly displayed a quote to see orders less than a second before the public is given an opportunity to trade with those orders. Investors who have access only to information displayed as public quotes may be harmed if market participants are able to flash orders and avoid the need to make the order publicly available.    » read more »

Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2009 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted unanimously to take several rulemaking actions to bolster oversight of credit ratings agencies by enhancing disclosure and improving the quality of credit ratings.

Credit rating agencies are organizations that rate the creditworthiness of a company or a financial product, such as a debt security or money market instrument. In particular, the Commission voted to adopt or propose measures intended to improve the quality of credit ratings by requiring greater disclosure, fostering competition, helping to address conflicts of interest, shedding light on rating shopping, and promoting accountability.    » read more »

In response to Kaufman’s letter, SEC Chairman says agency will undertake broader review

September 14, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, DC - On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the bankruptcy that sent shock waves down Wall Street and throughout the country, Senator Ted Kaufman (D-DE) will deliver a speech highlighting the failure to enact comprehensive financial regulatory reform in the 365 days since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

He will also detail the critical need for the nation's financial regulatory agencies to adopt a forward-looking approach to regulation - one that recognizes manipulation and wrongdoing before it metastasizes and leads to systemic failures or seriously undermines market credibility, fairness and investor confidence.    » read more »