Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
Of course the lawyerly answer is: “maybe.” Ronald Duane Dunham challenged his criminal conviction for securities fraud, arguing that the Cherokee Village lots he sold did not qualify as securities under the California Corporation Code. Mr. Dunham got in this position by persuading a number of elderly victims to invest over a million dollars with … Read more »
I have a written a few stories on the SEC’s case against Louis Schooler and his firm, Western Financial Planning Corp. The Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges against them for a real estate investment scheme. Schooler was selling general partnership interests that owned real estate using what looked like inflated valuations. By default general … Read more »
The tale of Western Financial Planning Corporation and Louis Schooler first caught my eye because the Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges against a real estate company. I stuck with the story because Western Financial tried really hard to structure the investments to avoid being considered securities. Even thought it tried really hard, a court … Read more »
Back in September, the SEC announced an asset freeze against Western Financial Planning Corporation and its principal Louis Schooler for a $50 million real estate fraud. That caught my eye because the SEC has little jurisdiction over real estate. The structure of the real estate investments went a long way to try to be not … Read more »
When the SEC announced an asset freeze against Western Financial Planning Corporation and its principal Louis Schooler, I was a bit troubled by the structure of the investments in question. The firm had structured the real estate investment vehicles as general partnerships. The presumption is that a general partnership interest is not a security. So … Read more »
The SEC announced an asset freeze against Western Financial Planning Corporation and its principal Louis Schooler. At first the situation sounded like a complaint against a real estate investment fund, but after reviewing the complaint, I found it to be a much more twisted tale. The defendants have not agreed to settle with the SEC, … Read more »