jakebrigance AKA Steve Samblis
Steve Samblis got a nice writeup in The Wall Street Journal last week, when his SEC-attracting shenanigans were profiled in the Feb. 12 "Heard on the Net" column.
Samblis, you'll remember, was ordered by a federal judge to stop violating the SEC's disclosure rules after the SEC said Samblis was "passing himself off as an independent and impartial stock picker when, in fact, he is nothing more than a paid pitch man for the companies he hypes." SEC rules require anyone paid to promote a stock must fully disclose the nature and amount of that compensation.
The SEC is questioning whether Samblis is complying with the order even though last week he sold the company that he apparently had been using as a shield. Samblis is president of Fortune Marketing & Capital Consultants, Inc. Until recently, he was running the SmallCap Journal - a print magazine and a website.
Fortune paid SmallCap Journal $4,000 a month to print promotional material for its clients. Samblis told the WSJ that that disclosure satisfied the SEC's disclosure rules, but the Commission disagrees. And selling SmallCap Journal may not be the panacea Samblis desires.
"The statute is clear. It says you can't directly or indirectly promote without disclosing compensation," Christian Bartholomew told the WSJ. Bartholomew is the SEC's lead attorney in its suit against Samblis. "You can't insulate yourself from liability by selling the company."
Even though Samblis said he sold the company, he's on record as saying he's simply "hired" someone to publish the information for him in order to dodge the disclosure rules. Whether any of this will be addressed in Samblis's Feb. 17 hearing scheduled in U.S. District Court in Orlando is not clear.
And Samblis hasn't broken all of his ties to SmallCap Journal. According to Internic, Samblis still owns the site's domain name.
More dirty deeds uncovered
Samblis isn't the only stock promoter hearing from the SEC lately. In unrelated incidents, the SEC filed charges against a promoter and a public relations consultant, while settling a case against another promoter.
Strategic Investment Advisory, Inc. and four of its officers were charged with fraud and violating the SEC's disclosure rules after making stock recommendations they claimed were independent but were, in fact, paid for. The recommendations were made through tout sheets, scripted conference calls, fax, telephone and the Internet. Between 1993 and 1997, the SEC claims the defendants were given at least $700,000 for promoting 20 microcap companies.
The SEC brought insider trading charges against Lisa C. Herbst, claiming she traded on information she learned while working on public relations projects for Adobe Systems, Inc., Asyst Technologies, Inc. and Splash Technology Holdings, Inc. Herbst is the owner of Herbst Consulting of Pleasanton.
In the final case, a U.S. District Judge in South Carolina issued a permanent injunction against Ronald V. Reece prohibiting him from violating the SEC's disclosure rules. Reece was charged with publishing false and misleading information about Green Oasis Environmental, Inc. in Internet newsgroup messages and in an electronic newsletter.
The List
Only one addition to the The List this week. Stock plaza offers a hodgepodge of stock info tools along with several company profiles. What it doesn't offer is adequate disclosure. Five companies have profile links, however, this includes one that links to nowhere. Of the remaining four, only two have any disclosure. One simply states how many shares the company and its employees control, but doesn't mention how those shares were acquired. The fourth site discloses the number of options held, at what price and how they got them: a finder's fee for digging up a network of known race car drivers for use in promotions.
As always, tread lightly………………………….
Stock Detective
|
