From June until October, I was repeatedly trying to get the SEC to answer questions in regards to disgorgement. This included the submission of a FOIA request in July which read, in parts, as follows: "Under certain circumstances, I believe that transferring disgorged money to the federal government, instead of returning that money to the investors from whom it was stolen, is nothing less than a conversion of shareholder funds. The circumvention of other investor rights may also rise from this practice...It is my objective to trace these transferred funds through disbursement by the federal government, and to inform the public of my findings."
(Re: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552
Request No. 18-02641-FOIA)
I ultimately received an adverse determination from the SEC, and I have a right to appeal that decision by January 24, 2019. I have not decided whether to file an appeal, or to simply file a new FOIA, or to take some other course of action.
A bit of the back and forth discussion I had with the SEC is discussed by the SEC's research specialist in her determination letter. "By email dated September 28, 2018, I (the SEC research specialist) memorialized a
telephone conversation that we had on that same day, where you
were advised that your response failed to clarify the records or
information that you are seeking relating to “disgorgement” for
“2008 till present.” You responded by email on October 9, 2018,
asking multiple additional questions, but still not clarifying
what records you wanted. Your email also stated that “I want to
know all details regarding the SEC's recovery of funds stolen from me, and what the SEC has chosen to do with the funds they
have recovered, which should have been returned to me.”
Anyway, that process took up the last half of the year, for the most part. And it will take all the time going forward that it needs to take.
AI
