Category: Publications

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Article: U.S. broker sanctioned for failing to guard against market manipulation

Article - Media, Publications

U.S. broker sanctioned for failing to guard against market manipulation

James Langton, 23 December 2019

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC has been sanctioned by the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and a trio of U.S. exchanges for supervisory violations that allowed possible market manipulation.

The firm has been fined a combined US$6.5 million for a variety of violations that stemmed from providing direct market access that allowed certain clients to engage in potentially manipulative trading activity, including spoofing, layering and wash trading. Continue reading “Article: U.S. broker sanctioned for failing to guard against market manipulation”

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Article: FINRA, Exchanges Blast Credit Suisse Over Failure to Prevent Market Manipulation

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FINRA, Exchanges Blast Credit Suisse Over Failure to Prevent Market Manipulation

Jeff Berman, 23 December 2019

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange and Cboe Global Markets all censured Credit Suisse Securities and fined the firm $6.5 million for supervisory and Securities Exchange Act of 1934/Market Access Rule violations after repeated failures to prevent market manipulation, FINRA said Monday.

Credit Suisse signed a letter of acceptance, waiver and consent on Nov. 18 in which it agreed to the censure and $6.5 million fine, of which $566,583 is to be paid to FINRA for violating multiple rules. FINRA accepted the letter Nov. 19.

A Credit Suisse spokesman on Monday said only that the firm was “pleased to have resolved these matters with FINRA and these exchanges.” Continue reading “Article: FINRA, Exchanges Blast Credit Suisse Over Failure to Prevent Market Manipulation”

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Article: Ekso Bionics Announces Closing of $5.0 Million Registered Direct Offering

Article - Media

Ekso Bionics Announces Closing of $5.0 Million Registered Direct Offering

GlobeNewswire, 20 December 2019

Ekso Bionics Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: EKSO) (the “Company”), an industry leader in exoskeleton technology for medical and industrial use, today announced the closing of its previously announced registered direct offering of 11,111,116 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase up to 8,333,337 shares of its common stock, at a combined purchase price of $0.45 per share and associated warrant, for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $5.0 million.

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Comment: This appears to be a stellar example of a life-saving vital technology company being destroyed by collusion between a placement agent and naked short sellers.
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Article: Goldman Sachs ‘close to $2bn settlement’ over 1MDB scandal

Article - Media, Publications

Goldman Sachs ‘close to $2bn settlement’ over 1MDB scandal

Kalyeena Makortoff, 19 December 2019

Goldman Sachs is close to reaching a settlement of nearly $2bn (£1.5bn) with the US Department of Justice over the 1MDB corruption scandal, according to a report.

The Wall Street bank is said to be formulating a deal under which its Asian subsidiary, rather than the parent company, would pay a multibillion-dollar fine and admit guilt for having allegedly turned a blind eye while $4.5bn was looted from its client, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB.

The deal would also involve oversight from an independent monitor that would help reform the bank’s compliance rules, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The settlement package would end the US justice department’s investigation into Goldman Sachs’ role as an underwriter and arranger of bond sales for the wealth fund, totalling $6.5bn.

About $4.5bn was allegedly looted from 1MDB in a fraud said to have involved the former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, the Malaysian financier Jho Low, and his associates. The funds were allegedly used to buy everything from yachts to artwork, and fund the production of Hollywood films including The Wolf of Wall Street.

Razak is facing criminal charges in Malaysia but has pleaded not guilty. Low is facing charges in both Malaysia and the US, and has also denied wrongdoing.

Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, said it was lied to about how the proceeds of the three bond sales it conducted on the fund’s behalf between 2012 and 2013 were used.

In November, the Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, confirmed he had rejected a separate offer from Goldman Sachs worth less than $2bn. “We are not satisfied with that amount so we are still talking to them … If they respond reasonably, we might not insist on getting that $7.5bn,” he told the FT.

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Article: South Africa should restrict rand access for offending foreign banks

Article - Media, Publications

South Africa should restrict rand access for offending foreign banks

David Whitehouse, 19 December 2019

A call from South Africa’s competition regulator to be given extra-territorial powers to prosecute foreign banks whose actions affect South Africans has drawn short shrift from investors.

After an investigation into alleged collusion by 23 banks, ten of which have no presence in South Africa, to co-ordinate on spot dollar and rand prices, the Competition Commission recommended fines totalling 10% of the banks’ global revenues.

The banks involved, which include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse, argue that the case should be dropped. The country’s Competition Tribunal in July ruled that the commission had no jurisdiction to impose the fines. Continue reading “Article: South Africa should restrict rand access for offending foreign banks”

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Article: This Top-Performing Pot Stock Was Accused of Fraud

Article - Media, Publications

This Top-Performing Pot Stock Was Accused of Fraud

Sean Williams, 19 December 2019

It’d be pretty fair to say that this is not how marijuana stock investors envisioned 2019 would go. After beginning the year on a (pardon the pun) high note, with more than a dozen pot stocks gaining in excess of 70% during the first quarter, the past 8.5 months have been nothing short of a train wreck.

To our north, Canada has struggled with the regulatory aspects of establishing a legal weed industry. Health Canada has been slow to approve cultivation, processing, and sales license applications, while Ontario, the most populous province, hasn’t approved retail store licenses in a timely manner. Meanwhile, high tax rates and a Swiss-cheese-like state-level approval process has constrained marijuana sales in legal U.S. states. In essence, the black market is thriving throughout North America.
Continue reading “Article: This Top-Performing Pot Stock Was Accused of Fraud”

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Article: Counterpoint: Short sellers like us create real value for public markets by telling Canadian investors the truth

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Counterpoint: Short sellers like us create real value for public markets by telling Canadian investors the truth

Ben Axler, 17 December 2019

In late January 2021, GameStop experienced a once-in-a-decade squeeze that has captivated the world’s attention. It was a premeditated and programmatic exercise, orchestrated by coordinated stock and option buying across the retail and professional community, resulting in large institutional entities losing billions of dollars. Investment houses with significant short positions did not expect a stock with GameStop’s fundamental profile to increase +2,500% in price over less than three weeks; therefore, they did not have the controls in place to handle the incredible levels of stock and call option purchases. The frenzy drew comments from the White House, provoked a social media crackdown, caused brokerage units to restrict trading, and has led to a Congressional hearing on GameStop on Thursday, February 18th.
Continue reading “Article: Counterpoint: Short sellers like us create real value for public markets by telling Canadian investors the truth”

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Release: IMPORTANT INVESTOR REMINDER The Schall Law Firm Announces the Filing of a Class Action Lawsuit Against Aurora Cannabis Inc. and Encourages Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 to Contact the Firm

Release

IMPORTANT INVESTOR REMINDER: The Schall Law Firm Announces the Filing of a Class Action Lawsuit Against Aurora Cannabis Inc. and Encourages Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 to Contact the Firm

16 December 2019

The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces the filing of a class action lawsuit against Aurora Cannabis Inc. (“Aurora” or “the Company”) (NYSE: ACB) for violations of §§10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Article: Murder, misinformation and money-laundering: Weapons in the arsenal of the Russian state

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Murder, misinformation and money-laundering: Weapons in the arsenal of the Russian state

Dominic Kavakeb, 16 December 2019

Just hours before the British public was set to go to the polls to elect a new Government, Global Witness was hosting an important and timely discussion on the global influence of Putin’s Russia in the UK.

From Russian troll factories to the spread of misinformation, accusations of Russian interference in global democratic processes have increasingly come to the fore. At the same time flows of Russian money, obscured by anonymous company ownership, have been at the centre of countless money laundering scandals. And from Alexander Litvinenko to Sergei Skripal assassination attempts on Russian nationals in the UK have regularly hit the headlines. Continue reading “Article: Murder, misinformation and money-laundering: Weapons in the arsenal of the Russian state”

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Article: Wirecard — Who’s Who of Bad Boys

Article - Media

Wirecard critics targeted in London spy operation

Miariam Jackson

The Union Journal, 11 December 2019

Two specialist traders, Matt Earl and Fraser Perring, co-authored the Zatarra report and therefore are one of the eight guys surveilled over recent weeks, combined with Mr [Crispin] Odey, Brett Palos, the stepson of merchant Philip Green, along with Nick Gold, a veteran stock exchange speculator.

Wirecard executives seem to have guessed a mole was working at a senior level within the firm after Mr Earl and Mr Perring released their Zatarra Report at 2016, prompting a criminal investigation from Germany into alleged market manipulation.

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Article: Tilray hit by $300 million lawsuit over scheme to bankrupt acquisition target

Article - Media, Publications

Tilray hit by $300 million lawsuit over scheme to bankrupt acquisition target

Mark P, 11 December 2019

Cannabis stocks have had a history of being rife with scandals and potential wrongdoings. While it’s unfortunate that the industry has garnered such a reputation, for the most part, this perception has died down a bit in 2019. However, from time to time, a well-known cannabis company will be implicated in something illegal or against the law. That’s what happened today with Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY), which was hit with a $300 million lawsuit from an acquisition target that claimed Tilray was trying to make them go bankrupt.

While it didn’t make headlines in the financial press, Bloomberg quietly mentioned that Tilray had been hit with a hefty lawsuit from a soap company called Trimax, which argued that the pot company had been trying to bankrupt one of its subsidiaries in order to make it easy to buy them out. Specifically, Trimax claims that Tilray wanted to buy its line of CBD products at a discount.gh cash that is inflated or compromised, and warranty and service costs are understated by at least $11 million.
Continue reading “Article: Tilray hit by $300 million lawsuit over scheme to bankrupt acquisition target”

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Article: Morgan Stanley Fined $22 Million for Rigging Bond Markets

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Morgan Stanley Fined $22 Million for Rigging Bond Markets

Gaspard Sebag, Stephanie Bodoni

Bloomberg, 10 December 2019

Morgan Stanley was fined 20 million euros ($22.1 million) by French regulators after the bank’s London desk was accused of using “pump and dump” tactics to manipulate sovereign bond prices.

The Autorite des Marches Financier’s enforcement committee said that the bank manipulated the prices of 14 French government bonds and 8 Belgian bonds in June 2015. The lender also manipulated the price of a French government bond futures contract, the AMF said in a statement Tuesday.

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Article: One of Wall Street’s most notorious short-sellers says Peloton will plummet 86%, citing ‘intense’ competition (PTON)

Article - Media

One of Wall Street’s most notorious short-sellers says Peloton will plummet 86%, citing ‘intense’ competition (PTON)

Carmen Reinicke

MarketInsider, 10 December 2019

 

  • Citron Research, run by the famed short-seller Andrew Left, slapped Peloton with a $5 price target on Tuesday.
  • That would imply an 86% drop from Monday’s close of $34.77.
  • Citron argued that the losses would come amid “intense” competition that’s mounting.
  • Shares of Peloton fell as much as 9.1% on Tuesday.

Comment:  Yelling fire in a crowded theatre is a crime A short and distort SELL REPORT How about selling his sell tickets IS he still short? his target is $5 right I bet he covered 10 min after his report . Andrew Left should be under investigation. His recommendations should be compared to his positions.

 

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Article: Tilray Slapped With $150 Million Lawsuit Over Alleged Plot to Bankrupt Takeover Target

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Tilray Slapped With $150 Million Lawsuit Over Alleged Plot to Bankrupt Takeover Target

RYAN T., 10 December 2019

Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY) is facing some serious allegations after Law360 broke a story recently which details the $150 million lawsuit filed against the Canadian licensed producer (LP) in the state of Florida. According to the lawsuit, Tilray allegedly plotted to bankrupt the Trimax Corp. subsidiary Saavy Naturals for the purpose of acquiring it at a reduced valuation to complement its line of CBD infused personal care products. Saavy Naturals was made famous after it appeared on the ABC hit television show Shark Tank.

The complaint claims that Tilray ran an “outrageous” scam through its majority shareholder and private equity firm Privateer Holdings to convince the company’s owners to bankrupt their own company so Tilray could take them over cheaply. Trimax shareholder Joseph Vasquez III lays out the case in a complaint filed in Florida state court on December 2, 2019, which has since been removed to Florida federal court.
Continue reading “Article: Tilray Slapped With $150 Million Lawsuit Over Alleged Plot to Bankrupt Takeover Target”

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