STOCKGATE TODAY
A newsletter reporting the issues of Securities Fraud
SEC Botches Another Case – January 3, 2008
David Patch
Federal Agencies typically try their best to not air dirty laundry but for the Securities and Exchange Commission the task is becoming rather difficult.
For the second time in barely 2 months the SEC has lost a case in federal court regarding illegal short sales associated with a Private Placement in Public Entity (PIPE) offering.
To start the New Year a federal judge in Manhattan threw out, with prejudice, the SEC's case against Gyrphon Partners brought forth by the Division of Enforcement. The SEC's case alleged that between 2001 and 2004 Gryphon Partners had defrauded PIPE issuers and violated securities-registration rules by shorting shares ahead of a PIPE placement and later covering their short position with the shares received in that placement.
Gryphon, on the other hand, contested that they legally "naked short" the stock through Canada where the US laws pertaining to a stock locate and borrow did not exist.
Apparently the federal judge has agreed with Gryphon and has terminated the SEC's case on those charges. The US Judge finding that the SEC based its claim on agency materials with "negligible support" for its view of the short sale regulations and that it quoted "selectively" and "misleadingly" from one of them to support their case. The judge allowed the charges of insider trading relative to those short sale trades to remain however.
It was last October that a federal judge in North Carolina dismissed the SEC's case against John Mangan for similar short sale activities in 2001 involving a PIPE deal with a small Maryland based Security and Protection company called Compudyne.
Why the difficulty in bringing enforcement cases of this nature to fruition?
Consider first that the loophole used by Gryphon Partners was no secret to those that commit this type of fraud. In 2000 the NASD recognized the loophole identified where shorts executed through Canada would fail settlement to the US purchasers of those trades. Unlike the US where a locate to borrow was required prior to the execution of a short sale, Canada had no such rules and thus allowed for short sales to trade without an equity share backing the trade.
In the exact years that Gryphon Partners was trading through the use of this loophole the SEC sat on the NASD proposed rule change to NASD Rule 3370. It was not until October 2003 that the SEC approved the NASD proposal with a delayed incorporation date of April 2004. By June 2004 the rule became obsolete under the SEC's newly released Regulation SHO.
The SEC has also had difficulties recognizing the damage the illegal short sale can have on the investing public and public issuer.
According to records, as early as 1995 the SEC, working with the federal agencies, provided immunity to short seller Anthony Elgindy for taking bribes to manipulate securities while working for boiler room operations. Instead of prosecution Elgindy was enlisted as an informant to aid the authorities on the identification of and enforcement against pump and dump operations.
As the SEC followed Elgindy's leads Elgindy continued to engage in illegal activities and was soon arrested by the federal authorities in May 2003 on charges of stock fraud, manipulation, and racketeering. Elgindy was using a private pay web site he set up to disseminate illegal information obtained and to enlist a group trading strategy to manipulate markets. Elgindy was later sentenced in 2006 to 9 years in a federal prison for his illegal acts.
Similarly John Fiero, with links to organized crime, money laundering, and short sale fraud was also an informant of securities regulators after being found guilty of fraud and manipulation.
In 1995 John Fiero colluded to drive down the price of 10 Nasdaq securities underwritten by now-defunct Hanover Sterling & Co. through illegal short selling of those securities. In 1998 the NASD brought Fiero up on enforcement charges and in January 2001 barred Fiero, fined him $1 Million, and expelled his firm Fiero Brothers (FSCO) from the industry.
But on October 1, 2001 Elgindy posted on his private web site, where Fiero was a paying member that “the NASD which barred and banned FSCO and fined him 1,000,000 bucks, gave him machines and room to trade from at their offices."
So Elgindy takes bribes to manipulate markets and is given immunity to become an informant and John Fiero illegally shorts stocks, puts a brokerage house Hanover Sterling out of business along with the clearing firm Adler Coleman and the NASD is setting him up an office in their facility.
Who were Fiero's working associates, beyond Elgindy that is?
In September 2000 Richard H. Walker SEC's Director, Division of Enforcement testified before a House subcommittee about the involvement of Organized Crime on Wall Street. Walked specifically addressed Hanover Sterling stating "In May 1997, a FBI sting operation led to charges by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York against Louis Malpeso, Jr., a reported Colombo crime family associate, for conspiring to commit securities fraud. The indictment alleged that Malpeso conspired with stock broker Joseph DiBella and Robert Cattogio, one of the heads of the Hanover Sterling brokerage firm, to inflate the price of a penny stock."
Hanover Sterling was a mobbed up brokerage and the firm Fiero executed his illegal trades through.
Could it be any clearer why the SEC couldn't get this issue straight in 2000 when the NASD first presented it and in 2008 as reforms continue to lack teeth?
Will the SEC learn from their mistakes and draft rule making that is less ambiguous and more straightforward? Not likely.
Present reforms to the latest short sale loophole, the Options Market Making exemption, has been out for public comment for near 18 months now covering two separate comment sessions. The SEC's offerings, beside the straightforward elimination, would require extensive tracking and complicated auditing to identify areas of abuse. The result will be more confusion, reason to claim ignorance when violations are identified, and compliance violation levels of enforcement instead of the premeditated fraud actions.
And this is exactly how the SEC likes it.
In October 2007, during a Q&A at the PIPES conference held in New York City by DealFlow Media, David Markowitz SEC's New York Bureau Asst. Director of Enforcement informed the audience of PIPE players that there were no strict guidelines on when a trade was legal or illegal relative to a PIPE contract. Markowitz claiming, each case needed to be looked at as a case-by-case basis relative to the circumstances surrounding the trading.
It was clear in an interview I had with Markowitz afterwards that the attorney was out of touch with the audience reactions to his case-by-case, attorney-by-attorney responses. Markowitz fully believed that the audience was in full understanding of the laws and the consistent application of the laws.
Since that speech two separate SEC cases for illegal PIPE trading practices have been tanked by two separate US Federal Judges who believe the SEC interpretations of the law do not comply with the interpretations as understood by the plaintiff nor the judge.
I suggest the SEC print up more get out of jail free cards to the crooks and criminals. The agency should stick to the small compliance violations that yield little resistance. Anything bigger than that and the SEC attorney's are outclassed and out lawyered by people who take this game much more seriously. Should they take me up on my suggestion there will be no need to worry, the collateral damage that will ensue are generally the ones that don't carry a voice in the markets anyway, they being be the silent retail investors and small business issuers.
For more on this issue please visit the Host site at www.investigatethesec.com
Copyright 2008
(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long)
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