Securities and Exchange Commission Archives

Airfox SEC Cryptocurrency Alt-Coin Settlement Is Everything Coin Issuers Hoped to Avoid – Securities Act Analysis Applies to Token Issuances

Airfox settles with SEC and treats tokens like the securities they are

CarrierEQ, Inc. (Airfox) did an initial coin offering in October 2017. They raised about $15 million to finance their digital token-denominated ecosystem for playing with ads.

Not bad, right? After all, lots of people were saying how ICOs were a cheap, non-dilutive way to raise money because SEC rules didn’t apply.

The SEC didn’t agree, as it warned in the DAO Report.

For its trouble, Airfox will pay a $250,000 penalty, which is not too bad.

However, they must also:

Register the tokens under the Exchange Act; and
File periodic reports with the SEC.

So far, expensive but still less than $15 million.

Airfox says they’re pleased with the result:

“We are pleased with these developments. We believe by reaching this resolution with the SEC and MSD, we are removing uncertainty and positioning Airfox to grow our blockchain platform within a regulatory framework,” said Victor Santos, CEO and co-founder, Airfox.

I doubt it. They must also offer rescission rights to everyone who bought their tokens from the Company.

Here we go.

Airtokens were issued at about $0.014 per token (they issued 1.06 billion tokens for $15 million). They are currently worth about 1/10 of that. If you invested, would you get your money back if you had the chance?

For their sake, I hope Airfox had another source of funding.

Expect more of this from the SEC:

“By providing investors who purchased securities in these ICOs with the opportunity to be reimbursed and having the issuers register their tokens with the SEC, these orders provide a model for companies that have issued tokens in ICOs and seek to comply with the federal securities laws,” said Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division.

Other notes:

The Massachusetts Securities Division was also involved, and it has been active in trying to police these activities.
Paragon Coin also settled with the SEC. Paragon wants to integrate blockchain and the cannabis industry.

The Airtoken ecosystem.

SEC Warns of SAFE Investment Instrument Popular in Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns

The SEC issued a bulletin warning investors about SAFE securities used in equity crowdfunding offerings.

Issuers in equity crowdfunding campaigns have offered various types of securities since it became legal to do so, such as various classes of stock, notes and instruments known as SAFE instruments. ‘SAFE’ stands for ‘Simple Agreement for Future Equity.’

SAFEs were originally designed to be an alternative to convertible notes for early-stage technology investments. The idea was that they would become simple, standardized vehicles for investing in very young companies without dealing with a lot the terms needed to make a convertible note or stock investment.

As the SEC points out, a SAFE is not like investing in common stock. It is an agreement that converts into issuer securities in the event of future triggering events, such as a future investment round, an IPO, a change of control or a liquidation.

Some people seem to think of them like convertible notes. However, convertible notes have maturity dates, among other terms. SAFEs do not and may never convert. SAFEs are more like derivative contracts with springing conversion based on listed events.

SAFEs have been increasing in use in the venture capital and angel investing worlds, and more recently other investors have gained some exposure and comfort with them. However, the SEC wants investors to know that:

SAFEs do not represent a current equity stake in the company in which you are investing.
SAFEs may only convert to equity if certain triggering events occur.
Depending on its terms, a SAFE may not be triggered.

To the people who have seen them before, none of this is a surprise. To a new investor, the SEC is concerned that these terms may be unexpected. As the SEC said:

SAFEs were developed in Silicon Valley as a way for venture capital investors to quickly invest in a hot startup without burdening the startup with the more labored negotiations an equity offering may entail. Oftentimes, for the venture capital investor, it was more important to get the investment opportunity, and possible future opportunities, with the startup than it was to protect the relatively small investment represented by the SAFE. In addition, the various mechanisms of the SAFE, from the triggering events to the conversion terms, were designed to best operate in the context of a fast growing startup likely to need and attract additional capital from sophisticated venture capital investors. This may or may not be the case with the crowdfunding investment opportunity you are exploring.

SAFEs can make a lot of sense to particular parties in particular deals, but investors such as crowdfunding investors should make sure to understand exactly what rights they have in what they are purchasing.

SEC issues warning about SAFE instruments in equity crowdfunding campaigns.

Equity Crowdfunding Risks and Liabilities – Yes, They Do Exist

Sorry startups, you actually have to be careful with equity crowdfunding disclosures. There is substantial risk of liability for securities fraud.

Based on discussions with the equity crowdfunding-curious, people seem to believe that equity crowdfunding is the wild west where anything goes. Raise lots of money and do it cheaply! Do what you want, say what you want and the SEC does not care! Look at the Form C’s, there were probably no lawyers anywhere near them. Think of the savings!!!!

None of that is true.

Done correctly, an equity crowdfunding offering should be done with as much care as any private placement. The actual information requirements are more extensive than a typical Rule 506 offering. Most importantly, crowdfunding issuers are subject to the same liability as any other securities selling issuer.

Securities Act Section 4A(c) provides that an issuer will be liable to a purchaser of its securities in a transaction exempted by Section 4(a)(6) if the issuer, in the offer or sale of the securities, makes an untrue statement of a material fact or omits to state a material fact required to be stated or necessary in order to make the statements, in light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading . . .

Sound familiar? What is the difference between this liability and private placements? Equity crowdfunding is done publicly to more people who are potential claimants.

What does this mean for issuers? It means the Form C and the offering page on the platform site need to be done carefully and in compliance with SEC rules. Those rules sound a lot like watered down Regulation S-K rules for MD&A, description of securities, related party transactions, etc… If you have never complied with them, good luck doing this without experienced help.

Well, at least the platforms are safe, right? They are just dumb pipes for crowdfunding deals and have no responsibility for what the issuers do on their site, right?

Well, no. While the SEC did not impose issuer liability on the platforms, it specifically declined to exempt the platforms from liability under Section 4A(c). Why? So investors could bring suits against the platforms to make sure that the platforms take steps to keep from becoming conduits of fraud.

The SEC believes that the platforms should take steps to protect themselves. Congress provided them a defense if they could not have known of an untruth or omission in the exercise of reasonable care. In other words, the “head in the sand” defense will not work. In addition, I have seen them provide and even require standard language and provisions in their issuers Form Cs and offering pages. I doubt the SEC will ignore this if this becomes misleading.

As the SEC stated:

These steps may include establishing policies and procedure that are reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the requirements of Regulation Crowdfunding, and conducting a review of the issuer’s offering documents, before posting them to the platform, to evaluate whether they contain materially false or misleading information.

We are coming up on the one year anniversary of equity crowdfunding. It is still very early in the equity crowdfunding world to see where the liability issues will shake out. However, it is clear that the SEC and the state securities regulators take these liability issues seriously, and the issuers and platforms should too.

Equity Crowdfunding. Missing Category: Liability

Insider Trading Law Tightens Up for Tippers and Tippees

The Supreme Court speaks about insider trading, and it is not good for tippers and tippees.

I’m still going through the backlog of recent stuff. Here’s an important update on insider trading.

For the first time in a long time, the Supreme Court provided new guidance on insider trading laws. The government had suffered a few high-profile defeats in this area over the last few years, but Salman v. United States provided more insight into indirect liabilities for insider trading while providing more ammunition to the government to go after indirect (tippee) insider trading defendants.

In Salman, A was an investment banker in Citigroup’s healthcare investment banking group. Over time, he regularly tipped off B, his brother. B also provided the information to other people, including C, B’s friend who was also A’s brother-in-law. A tangled web and all that . . .

In the classic Dirks case, a tippee, in this case C, is exposed to liability to insider trading if the tippee participates in a breach of the tipper’s fiduciary duty. The test is whether the insider will benefit, directly or indirectly, from the disclosure. Disclosure without personal benefit is not enough. However, a close, personal relationship can create an inference of benefit.

In 2014, the Second Circuit in Newman, a case involving a more distant relationship between the traders and the insider information, did not permit the inference without proof of a meaningfully close personal relationship that generates an exchange that is objective, consequential, and represents at least a potential gain of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature.

The Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court disagreed.

The Supreme Court said that the test is whether the insider personally will benefit, directly or indirectly, from the disclosure. Disclosure without personal benefit is not enough. However, the benefit can be inferred from objective facts and circumstances such as a relationship between the parties that suggests a quid or quo or intention to benefit the tippee.

The takeaway is that insider trading is not worth it. If caught, it is not that difficult to convict.* It just got easier. If the prosecution can show that there is a close enough relationship between the tipper and tippee, a jury can infer a benefit assuming that the transaction is no different than the tipper doing the trading and gifting the proceeds to the tippee.

*Sort of. There are some pending articles about some more difficult cases for the SEC and prosecutors.

M&A Broker vs. Broker-Dealer

SEC issues M&A Advisor interpretations.

Securities and Exchange Commission — SEC issues M&A Advisor interpretations.

I have written in the past about the challenges of people looking to facilitate deals without a broker-dealer license. Short answer: You probably can’t get paid.

However, there is an entire industry of business brokers and M&A advisors that seem to get close to the line. In January 2014, the SEC outlined when an M&A advisor could assist in the sale of a privately held company without registering as a broker-dealer. Its been hanging out there for a while, but I figured this was a good enough time to write about it.

First, it defined “M&A Broker” as “a person engaged in the business of effecting securities transactions solely in connection with the transfer of ownership and control of a privately-held company (as defined below) through the purchase, sale, exchange, issuance, repurchase, or redemption of, or a business combination involving, securities or assets of the company, to a buyer that will actively operate the company or the business conducted with the assets of the company.”

In addition, a “privately-held company” is not an SEC filing company

The SEC provided a list of several conditions:

The M&A Broker will not have the ability to bind a party to an M&A Transaction.
An M&A Broker will not directly, or indirectly through any of its affiliates, provide financing for an M&A Transaction.
The M&A Broker may not have custody, control, or possession of or otherwise handle funds or securities issued or exchanged in connection with an M&A Transaction or other securities transaction for the account of others.
No M&A Transaction will involve a public offering.
Any offering or sale of securities will be conducted in compliance with an applicable exemption from registration under the Securities Act of 1933.
No party to any M&A Transaction may be a shell company, other than a business combination related shell company.
To the extent an M&A Broker represents both buyers and sellers, it will provide clear written disclosure as to the parties it represents and obtain written consent from both parties to the joint representation.
An M&A Broker will facilitate an M&A Transaction with a group of buyers only if the group is formed without the assistance ofthe M&A Broker.
The buyer, or group of buyers, in any M&A Transaction will, upon completion of the M&A Transaction, control and actively operate the company or the business conducted with the assets of the business.
Any securities received by the buyer or M&A Broker in an M&A Transaction will be restricted securities within the meaning of Rule 144(a)(3) under the Securities Act.

There are more details in the SEC’s letter, which we may cover in another post. It will be interesting over time to see if the SEC focuses on one or more elements of the interpretation.

Penny Stock Fraud – Why Penny Stock Email Promotions Are Bad For You

SEC cracks down on microcap securities fraud.

Like me, you may get bombarded with long email ads for some penny stock. They always tout how the stock is about to break out from $0.01/share to $0.05 or $10.00/share.

Did you ever get the sense that these may be scams. Gadzooks! Say it ain’t so!

The SEC today announced fraud charges and an asset freeze against the promoter of AwesomePennyStocks.com, a frequent trash dumper into my email accounts.

It charges that John Babikian used his sites for a “scalping” scam with the stock of America West Resources Inc. (AWSRQ). AWSRQ was low priced and thinly traded. Babikian fired off about 700,000 emails touting the stock. However, he failed to disclose that he owned 1.4 million shares of AWSRQ and was ready to sell them through a Swiss bank. The stock took off, and he made “ill-gotten” gains of more than $1.9 million.

The Babikian case is another example of the SEC’s focus on microcap stock fraud.

“The Enforcement Division, including its Microcap Fraud Task Force, is intensely focused on the scourge of microcap fraud and is aggressively working to root out microcap fraudsters who make their living by preying on unwitting investors,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.

Proving that the SEC has some teeth when it needs them,

The court’s order, among other things, freezes Babikian’s assets, temporarily restrains him from further similar misconduct, requires an accounting, prohibits document alteration or destruction, and expedites discovery. Pursuant to the order, the SEC has taken immediate action to freeze Babikian’s U.S. assets, which include the proceeds of the sale of a fractional interest in an airplane that Babikian had been attempting to have wired to an offshore bank, two homes in the Los Angeles area, and agricultural property in Oregon.

SEC Due Diligence Alert Released For Investment Advisers

SEC due diligence alert regarding processes for selecting alternative investments is released.

Link: SEC Risk Alert – Investment Advisor Due Diligence Processes for Selecting Alternative Investment and their Respective Managers

The SEC has been reviewing due diligence processes for investment advisers for alternative investments and is getting concerned. After all, assets under management, or “AUM” in industry talk, reached $6.5 trillion for alternative investments. The SEC issued an alert reminding advisers to perform due dilience to determine whether the investment:

Meets the clients’ investment needs; and
Is consistent with disclosed investment strategies.

According to the SEC, “alternative investments” include hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate and funds of private funds.

The SEC conducted examinations of registered advisers and noted the following trends in alternative investment due diligence to identify risk indicators:

Advisers are seekeing more information directly from alternative investment managers
Advisers are using third parties to supplement their analyses and verify data
Advisers are performing additional quantitative analysis of performance returns and risk measures
Advisers are expanding their due diligence processes and focus areas

The SEC then used the alert to remind advisers about their obligations to adopt and review their compliance programs and codes of ethics.

: SEC Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations issues risk alert for due diligence processes by investment advisers

New Twist On Old SEC Enforcement Tool: Deferred Prosecution Agreements for Individuals

The SEC announced that it entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with an individual, a first for the agency.

Enforcement officials often use DPAs to encourage targets to come forward with information about illegal activities and to cooperate with investigations. The agency agrees not to prosecute, and the target agrees to behave.

In this case, the deferree, a hedge fund administrator, spilled the beans about his boss regarding misuse of about $1.5 million and lying to investors about the fund’s performance. The DPA discusses overstatements of fund returns and discrepancies in the net asset value, or NAV, used for internal and external purposes.

The SEC froze the fund’s and the boss’ assets and is preparing to distribute about $6 million to injured investors.

SEC Rolls Out Market Structure Website

It is actually a part of their sec.gov website, but it is a new part.

MIDAS Website here.
SEC Press Release here.

The SEC released its new MIDAS site to “promote better understanding of our equity markets and equity market structure through the use of data and analytics.” This is a fancy way of saying that you can make charts of market info that you usually don’t see in traditional stock tickers rolling across your t.v. screen.

I am still combing through it to see what it does and how it can be useful. It seems to provide some very detailed information relating to trading activity. We are not talking about mere buy-sell-bid-ask information for stocks, but information that generates pretty charts purporting to show how the market functions.

It seems aimed at understanding (or providing the premise for going after) the high frequency trading (HFT) crowd and flash crashes.

The SEC believes it will help it to monitor and understand mini-flash crashes, reconstruct market events, and develop a better understanding of long-term trends. To this end, MIDAS collects:

posted orders and quotes on national exchanges;
modifications/cancellations of those orders;
trade executions against those orders; and
off-exchange trade executions.

The SEC’s new website will be making available broadly:

ratios related to the number and volume of orders that are canceled instead of traded;
percentage of on-exchange trades and volume that are not disseminated on the public tape (odd-lot trades);
percentage of on-exchange trades and volume that are the result of hidden orders; and
quarterly distributions analyzing the lifetime of quotes ranging from one millionth of a second to one day.

The website can be used to:

compare and contrast data series according to the type of security, market capitalization, volatility, price, and turnover; and
explore detailed quote-life distributions, and download data series and quote-life distributions.

It is not immediately clear to me how this will be used as a policy-making tool, but you can expect charts generated from MIDAS to be displayed in some very exciting Congressional hearings.

SEC To Remain Open During Government “Shutdown”

The SEC has assured the markets that it “will remain open and operational in the event the federal government undergoes a lapse in appropriations on October 1.”

Any changes to the SEC’s operational status after October 1 will be announced on www.sec.gov.

If you want more juicy details of the SEC’s operational plan in the event of a government shutdown, enjoy this link:

Plan of Operations During an SEC Shutdown