Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
The First Every Cryptocurrency Back By Real Estate, REcoin, is a big scam. At least according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several weeks ago the SEC posted an Investor Bulletin in Initial Coin Offerings. In the bulletin, the SEC raised the issue that an initial coin offering could easily be considered an offering of … Read more »
There is no place for hyperbole or fudging numbers in disclosure of investment returns. The Boston office of the Securities and Exchange Commission made that point with Aegerion Pharmaceuticals in its enforcement case. According to the SEC complaint, Aegerion’s CEO said that the “vast majority of patients” who were given prescriptions for one of its drugs were … Read more »
Some of the things that catches my attention with frauds and Ponzi schemes are the steps that the fraudsters will take to cover up the fraud and how they think they will escape from the fraud unscathed. The recent charges against Jeremy Drake caught my attention because of the steps he took. The Securities and Exchange … Read more »
The product sounds great: “The Gold Standard to monitor metastic breast cancer. Our Serum-2 test provides a more accurate representation of HER-2 status, facilitating more appropriate treatment strategies.” NanoMolecularDX is “executing a commercialization strategy” for this test and others. In July is closed on $1 million of seed funding. I’m an advocate for cancer research and … Read more »
I’m a local homer, so fraud cases in Massachusetts catch my attention, especially when they involve private funds. The case of the floundering hedge fund, MC2 Capital, founded by Yasuna Murakami, is the usual example of greed and failure to acknowledge one’s mistakes. Mr. Murakami had big dreams and in the glory days of 2007 thought … Read more »
Some financial fraud is easy to spot. Some is hard to spot. Some I barely understand. Kevin Amell was very clever in hiding his alleged fraud and I’m not sure I understand exactly how he pulled it off. Mr. Amell was a fund manager at Eaton Vance for its Risk-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund. The … Read more »
The Securities and Exchange Commission took the “extreme step” of warning consumers that articles on the internet may not be objective and independent. They sent up a warning signal to deceptive promoters by announcing enforcement actions against 27 individuals and entities behind various alleged stock promotion schemes that left investors with the impression they were reading independent, … Read more »
When you run across someone trying to get you to invest risk-free with a high annual return, you know you have run into a fraudster. Unless god is on the side of the investment, there is no such thing as a high-rate, risk-free return. Apparently, Larry Holley, the pastor of Abundant Life Ministries in Flint, Mich., … Read more »
I did not find the headline to be remarkable: SEC Charges Mexico-Based Homebuilder in $3.3 Billion Accounting Fraud. The subtitle caught my attention: SEC Uses Satellite Imagery to Crack Case We learned from the Rajaratnam insider trading case that the SEC was using wire taps and informants as part of its securities fraud investigations. The SEC … Read more »
It was a real estate fraud action that caught my eye, but the victims that kept me reading. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Paul Garcia and his fund management company, Caliber Capital, for defrauding investors. Since it was a real estate fraud, it caught my eye. But I didn’t have to dive … Read more »