"Hey DKTS Share holders over here stopping the run. I got your fake names and info. Going to have a lawyer look into actions and find out who you are, if that doesn't work I'll ask sec to find out who manipulated this stock from running."
(Hint: it was the note holders, who make 100%+ profits from discounted shares no matter what the PPS is, so long as there's a bid.)
But seriously, don't ask the SEC that, because they will laugh in your face. "The run" stopped around February 1, just after ISBG put out two press releases suggesting that they had settled/deferred a bunch of debt, and just before they put out a tweet assuring investors that the "Company doesn't dilute," while at the same time VNDM was showing up and 500MM shares were dumped into the market.
Again, they issued HALF A BILLION SHARES that were sold into the market within a week or so. Despite their tweet during that time that the "company doesn't dilute," they did, according to their own filings, and that has a way of scaring off traders and killing a run. That, and pushing off the purported "six figure" marketing campaign they had touted would start on February 1 to "begins in February," not to mention delaying the filing of their Q4 financials (promised by February 15) by six weeks because their "auditors" needed more time to revise the footnotes, or something.
By the way, when you talk to "a lawyer," you should have him peruse the following and think about it awhile before s/he quotes you a fee:
Addressing IHub’s argument that anonymous speech is protected by the First Amendment, COR contended that it was seeking evidence related to its core claims, and which was not available from other sources. Put more clearly, COR believed the money it had “lost” had ended up in the hands of specific IHub posters, and it wanted to know the identities of those posters. Answering IHub’s objection that the 67 clearing firms that had handled the transactions in question would be the logical source of such information, COR said that although it had served subpoenas on some of those firms, it was not “economically feasible” to deal with them all.
On May 9, IHub filed an extraordinary brief in opposition to COR’s motion to compel. It begins with the assertion that the clearing firm “urges this Court to trample on the established First Amendment rights of anonymous speakers based on COR’s urgent entreaties that their identities are critical to COR’s ability to pursue its fraud and unjust enrichment claims.” Going to the heart of the matter, IHub points out that the anonymous speakers in question were not named as parties to the underlying case, and so exposure of their identities would be irrelevant to the claims COR stated in its complaint. IHub further notes that “ …the weighty First Amendment concerns threatened by COR’s subpoena should persuade this Court to uphold the strong protections afforded to anonymous speakers in proceedings attempting to force disclosure of their identities. Indeed, if those identities are revealed, the consequences to such speakers are immediate, permanent and irreversible. Thus, as to the nonparty speakers, this Court’s decision has the potential to be not only procedurally, but constitutionally, dispositive.
When COR produced its list of 54 posters in February, it referenced only seven examples of posts. IHub objected that “COR offered no explanation or evidence supporting its claim that the discussion on the Calissio Board of widely publicized matters regarding Calissio was somehow actionable, but… simply relied upon its sweeping and unsupportable conclusions that those isolated remarks are clear evidence of fraud and wrongdoing.” By the time COR submitted its “modified” list of 35 aliases as an exhibit to the motion to compel, a number of the original names had been removed, and new ones had been added. As IHub said, “the information demanded by COR at any point in time [is] a ‘moving target’”.
IHub then turned to an explanation of the heightened standard for identification of anonymous parties established in the seminal Dendrite case. A plaintiff must give the speakers notice and allow them to defend their anonymity; must specifically identify the allegedly actionable speech or conduct; must state a claim against each defendant; must produce evidence supporting those claims; and must satisfy the court that the harm to plaintiff outweighs the damage caused to defendant speakers. But the individuals whose personal information was sought by COR in its motion to compel were not parties to the underlying litigation. The standard for identification of anonymous nonparties is even higher. The defendants in the case are not IHub posters, but Calissio, Carter, and Signature. As IHub put it, “nowhere in the pleadings does COR allege that any Calissio shareholders, much less any Posters who COR insists must be Calissio shareholders, were involved, knowingly or otherwise, in the alleged fraudulent activity, except as ‘victims’ according to the Complaint.” Even more explicitly, COR stated in the complaint that it “does not assert any claims against Calissio shareholders.”
IHub acknowledges that since COR’s motion to appoint a receiver was denied, the clearing firm has apparently taken a new stance, but points out that it has never amended its complaint to reflect that. In addition, though COR argued in the motion to compel that the anonymous posters should be unmasked because some or all of them “actively perpetrated the fraud” does not sort well with the claim in the complaint that Calissio, Carter, and Signature committed their own fraud in secret, “notifying no one outside their inner circle of conspirators.”
IHub also reminded COR that it had “alternative sources to trolling message boards,” though COR claimed it did not. In connection with that, it brings up the clearing firm’s still-active efforts to extract customer information from TD Ameritrade Clearing and E-Trade Clearing. IHub closed by suggesting that “this Court should reject COR’s attempt to enlist judicial assistance in this attempt to so grossly abridge the Posters’ constitutional rights.”
Charles Stampelos, a Magistrate Judge for the Tallahassee Division of the Northern District of Florida, ruled on the action, finding in IHub’s favor. On May 11, he issued an order denying COR’s motion to compel. Convinced by IHub’s argument that the anonymous posters whose identities were sought by COR were not parties to the case, he held:
The First Amendment right implicated here is not inconsequential, nor is the amount of monetary loss allegedly suffered by COR. Notwithstanding, the disclosure of entities who have made postings on IHub cannot be permitted because those postings are not sufficiently related to the wrongful actions of Defendants Calissio, Adam Carter, and Signature Stock Transfer as alleged in the underlying civil case. The motion to compel is denied.
Unlike many message board operators, IHub is willing to defend its members. Most similar sites simply turn over the information requested, or merely notify them that a legal action with which they intend to comply is underway. More than once, IHub has defended itself and its posters against individuals and entities interested in abridging those posters’ right to anonymous speech, or seeking to silence them altogether. Members seeking anonymity should appreciate its efforts on their behalf.
