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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Rocky Mountain Int'l (OTC:RMIL former OTC:OVIS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Arcane Lore who wrote (43959)	3/15/1998 1:26:00 AM
From: Pugs	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 55532

Presstek sues short-sellers over Web postings Presstek Inc. sued three short-sellers on allegations they posted false reports about the company on the Internet in an effort to drive the company's stock lower. The company said, Ivan Lustig, Mark Hollingsworth and Parag Patel used aliases in posting the statements on Silicon Investor and Motley Fool, two popular Web sites frequented by investors. The Web sites aren't named in the suit. Lustig and Patel deny they posted any false statements; Hollingsworth couldn't be reached immediately for comment

To: Arcane Lore who wrote (43959)	3/23/1998 10:43:00 PM
From: Arcane Lore	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 55532

More information concerning temporary trading suspensions: Can the SEC extend a 10 day trading suspension? As noted in the post I'm replying to, it appears rare for the SEC to issue two trading suspensions for the same security. Only two stocks were noted in that post as having been the subject of more than one trading suspension, namely Twenty First Century Health and Struthers Industries. Information on their trading suspensions is given in: Twenty First Century Health: sec.gov sec.gov Struthers: sec.gov sec.gov Note than in each case, the reasons for the second suspension were different from those for the initial suspension. It turns out that there is a reason for that. The SEC cannot simply extend the initial suspension beyond its ten day period. They can, however, issue additional, independent suspensions to address new concerns. It was not always thus: Up until May, 1978, the SEC would, as they deemed warranted by the circumstances, extend a pre-existing halt by simply tacking on an additional 10 days. In one, presumably extraordinary case, this process of consecutive suspensions continued for a total of 13 years! This all changed following a Supreme Court case, SEC vs. Sloan, decided on May 15, 1978. Sloan, a holder of 13 shares* of Canadian Javelin, a stock subject to two extended SEC mandated halts each lasting more than a year (utilizing the 'tack on' procedure) brought an action that eventually ended up in the Supreme Court where it was decided in his favor. The Supreme Court decision may be found at: ishipress.com In addition to ending the practice of extending the previous 10 day trading suspension, this decision may also have led to current practice of including the reasons for the halt in the suspension notice. Prior to the decision, the SEC announced the halt using language like: "It appearing to the Securities and Exchange Commission that the summary suspension of trading in such securities on such exchange and otherwise than on a national securities exchange is required in the public interest and for the protection of investors; [therefore, trading is suspended]." The decision implicitly criticizes this vague formula without specifically ordering it to cease. Including the reasons in the notice also, of course, provides SEC with a basis for asserting the independence of a later suspension from an initial suspension. ===== * Sloan is described as "engaged in substantial purchases and short sales of shares of the stock". Presumably he held more than 13 shares at some point. Also, my apologies to all triskaidekaphobics for the excessive use of that number in this post.

To: Arcane Lore who wrote (43959)	9/26/1998 9:04:00 PM
From: Arcane Lore	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 55532

Those of you who follow the RMIL Drinkers thread will have already seen ( #reply-5834342 ) the link to an announcement of the large number of microcap fraud SEC enforcement actions announced on Sept. 24, 1998 (see sec.gov , and, also, sec.gov ). Interestingly the stocks of a full third of the 24 companies listed in the post I'm responding to (a list of companies that were subject to SEC 10 day trading suspensions) were mentioned* in Thursday's enforcement actions.** The stocks that were related to the Thursday's enforcement actions are in the following list. The list also gives the date the temporary trading suspension was imposed and the corresponding litigation release from Thursday's actions. As can be seen from the suspension dates there is often a long gap between the trading suspension and enforcement actions. However, in this regard it should be noted that some of these companies have been mentioned in prior enforcement actions - for example, in the case of Systems of Excellence (SEXI), there have been a very large number of prior enforcement actions. There are also stocks such as Electro-Optical Systems Corp. (trading suspension 3/13/98) which were the subject of prior enforcement actions not included on Thursday's list. Also note that the suspensions of all eight companies occurred prior to that of RMIL (12/22/97). The SEC enforcement wheels often grind very slowly. However, there was one additional company which underwent a trading suspension subsequent to RMIL's which was mentioned in connection with Thursday's enforcement actions. This was Shopping.com (IBUY) whose trading suspension began on Mar. 24, 1998 (nine days after my earlier post). The corresponding enforcement action relating to alleged market manipulation in IBUY's shares can be found at: sec.gov. The eight companies from the Mar. 15, 1998 list are: Systems of Excellence, Inc. (SEXI) (10/7/96) sec.gov Omnigene Diagnostics, Inc. (11/20/96) sec.gov Twenty-First Century Health, Inc. (aka Bio-Tech Industries) (2/10/97, 2/27/97) sec.gov Historic Hotel Holdings, Inc. (aka VII Visionary Investments) (4/10/97) sec.gov Genesis International Financial Service, Inc. (GIFS) (5/1/97) sec.gov Combined Companies International Corp. (5/19/97) sec.gov Amquest International, Ltd (5/30/97) sec.gov Legend Sports, Inc. (9/15/97) sec.gov * It should be noted that in several cases the company itself was not a target of Thursday's enforcement actions. ** The fact that a large number were the subject of prior trading suspensions was noted in the SEC announcement as well.