The REFR stock fraud
On August 2, 1995, Research Frontiers issued a press release touting a "license agreement" with General Electric granting GE "a non-exclusive license to manufacture films incorporating the Company's proprietary suspended particle device (SPD) light control technology". Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
On September 15, 1995, Research Frontiers issued a press release stating that it "denied knowledge" of a "possible General Electric buyout". On that same day, REFR hit its all-time intraday high of 16 7/8 per share.
In September 1995, Robert Saxe, CEO of Research Frontiers exercised options for over 80,000 shares at prices ranging from approximately $1 to $3 a share, in addition, Mr. Saxe sold well over 150,000 shares soon thereafter.
The General Electric license agreement expired 18 months later (around February, 1997). However, Research Frontiers continues to claim that General Electric is a "current licensee" on its web site, in its press releases, and in SEC documents. We believe that this is intended to deliberately mislead small investors in order to entice them to buy REFR's stock at artificially high prices. Robert Saxe all but admitted this fraud by stating (in a recent Newsday.com article) that GE "had regained" interest, but the reporter - upon checking with a GE spokesman - discovered that GE had "no information" on the contract.
Research Frontiers has never delivered a single product in its 35 years of existence. The company relies solely on the sale of stock to the public to finance its operations. Research Frontiers relies heavily on dubious paid stock promoters (via newsletters and dissemination of false rumors via the internet) to sell its grossly overvalued shares. |
