"Analyst Mark Bergman was secretly paid to issue a false research report in 2000 that helped drive up the stock price of Environmental Solutions Worldwide Inc., the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a securities fraud lawsuit announced Friday."
SEC Sues Analyst, Says Environmental Solutions Report False
By David Evans
Santa Monica, California, Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Analyst Mark Bergman was secretly paid to issue a false research report in 2000 that helped drive up the stock price of Environmental Solutions Worldwide Inc., the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a securities fraud lawsuit announced Friday.
Both were charged with participating in a ``$15 million pump- and-dump scheme'' by the agency in the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. Also charged were Environmental Solution's Chairman Bengt Odner, and investors who allegedly paid for the report and sold stock as the company's shares soared to $7 from $2 in 2000. The shares recently traded at 15 cents.
The SEC said Bergman's research report, distributed by Environmental Solutions, misled investors by claiming the company had a ``revolutionary'' catalytic converter. The device was actually less effective than existing models, according to the agency. None of the defendants could be reached for comment.
Bergman's report, which predicted Environmental Solutions shares would rise to between $30 and $125 a share, was published by Access 1 Financial, a now-defunct Santa Monica, California, company run by Bergman that wrote research reports in exchange for fees.
Bergman was paid $25,000 and 30,000 shares of Environmental Solutions by shareholder Teodisio Pangia. Those payments weren't disclosed in his report, as required by law, the SEC alleged.
Agate Type
The SEC also charged that Pangia and an associate, Spal Singh of Toronto, sold millions of shares as the stock price rose. Neither could be reached for comment.
Pangia has previously denied paying for the Access 1 research. ``I didn't compensate him,'' Pangia said of Bergman in an April 2000 interview with Bloomberg News. ``I deny that unequivocally.''
While Bergman disclosed compensation in his reports, at the end of them and in agate type, he said in an interview in April 2000, that he omitted disclosure in an ``oversight'' in his original Environmental Solutions report.
In style and content, Bergman's reports mimicked those of traditional stock analysts -- ``We recommend the accumulation of Environmental Solutions Worldwide Inc.'s shares for appropriate investors.'' Yet, his Access 1's brochure to potential clients said Bergmann's analyst reports were designed to have a ``potentially substantial impact on your company's valuation.''
Access 1 issued more than a dozen ``buy'' recommendations, which were often announced in press releases by subject companies. Many, like Environmental Solutions, didn't disclose the reports were paid for by the subject companies.
Xybernaut
``I think certainly people can get confused,'' said Bergman, also in an April 2000 interview. He was a senior vice president at Xybernaut Corp. before starting Access 1 in 1999.
Xybernaut issued a press release announcing Bergman's ``buy'' recommendation on the wearable computer maker's shares in February 2000. Neither Fairfax, Virginia-based Xybernaut nor Access 1 disclosed that Bergman owned options to buy shares in Xybernaut, where he worked as a sales executive from late 1997 until September 1998. The press release, which predicted Xybernaut's shares would double to $28.80, remains on Xybernaut's Internet site. The company's shares recently traded at 42 cents.
SEC records show that Pangia filed to sell millions of Environmental Solutions shares soon after Bergman's report was released, as the company's stock began to gain.
The stock rose to $7.38 from $4.88 in early 2000, with 1.5 million shares changing hands a day, after the company issued a press release Feb. 25, 2000, saying Access 1 Financial had begun ``coverage'' of the company with a ``buy'' recommendation. Internet bulletin boards soon began circulating the optimistic report.
On March 13, 2000, Pangia filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission his intention to sell 3.17 million shares of Environmental Solutions, his entire holding.
Bergman said in the 2000 interview he was upset that Pangia sold shares while Access 1 was promoting the company's stock. ``I guess we were used,'' he says. ``It looks pretty obvious now.'' |
