Zion Oil & Gas Inc (ZNOG)

[DragonBear]

Bottom line-wrong

ZN received a subpoena, and notice they were under investigation. By definition a Formal SEC investigation. That occurred late Jun 2018, and was disclosed in a Jul 2018 8K.

The SEC will not disclose exactly what they are investigating per ZN. The only clue we get was ZN acting a little defensively in the 8K with:

Zion, an SEC-reporting company with audited financial statements in the US and Israel for over a decade,

Why include the word "audited", or state the obvious? The subpoena is likely the SEC asking for the raw data of past audits, up to a decade.

That 8K filing, then caused the PPS to crash, prompting the class action lawsuits suing for damages to the SHs or Plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Not the other way around as you are claiming.

The SEC investigation is totally separate from the subsequent civil class action lawsuits. It's not unusual for SEC formal investigations to last 1-3 yrs. Statue of limitations is 5 yrs to bring litigation. If they are after something in the audits, then pouring over years worth of accounting, and following the money trail isn't going to be quick. The SEC side is just beginning.

The civil lawsuits are obviously on a different timeline - as in now. They have to prove their cases on their own. They can't subpoena SEC active investigation material. That's why they frequently wait until after the SEC files litigation, to plug their lawsuits into SEC findings.

For ZN SHs, if ZN "wins" the class action lawsuits, it's a few bullets dodged. The important one to "win" is for the SEC to not find anything, and not litigate. And as a reminder the SEC does not launch a formal investigation for securities violations, just for the fun of it. If the SEC had nothing, the investigation would have remained a non-formal investigation, without subpoena power.