The Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) filed a civil injunctive action on August 26, 2014 against Oscar F. Villarreal, formerly of Gates Mills, Ohio. The Commission’s complaint alleges that Villarreal defrauded 51 investors out of more than $18 million in three securities offerings since 2009. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the […]
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced that it has filed a complaint against Los Angeles-based Wedbush Securities Inc. for systemic supervisory and anti-money laundering (AML) violations in connection with providing direct market access and sponsored access to broker-dealers and non-registered market participants. During the period at issue, Wedbush was one of the securities industry’s […]
Ryan Bakhtiari has been invited to participate as a speaker at the 2014 Practicing Law Institute (PLI) conference program on Thursday, July 31, 2014. The PLI Securities Arbitration program is held at the PLI New York Center and also online by webcast. The program brings together legal professionals with securities industry regulators to discuss hot […]
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged the co-owner of two Bitcoin-related websites for publicly offering shares in the two ventures without registering them. An SEC investigation found that Erik T. Voorhees published prospectuses on the Internet and actively solicited investors to buy shares in SatoshiDICE and FeedZeBirds. But he failed to register the offerings […]
Ryan Bakhtiari has been invited to participate as a speaker at the 2014 FINRA Annual Conference program on Monday, May 19, 2014 titled “Arbitration, Expungement and Arbitrator Disclosure.” The FINRA Annual Conference is held between May 19, 2014 and May 21, 2014 at the Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel. The conference brings together legal and compliance professionals, with […]