April 2021 Regulatory Updates

Regulatory Actions and Updates from Around the Globe
Enforcement Highlights – April 2021
United States:
- The SEC awarded over USD $3 million to two whistleblowers who brought to light key issues and violations to help improve SEC’s ongoing compliance efforts.
- SEC filed charges against 8 companies for failing to disclose complete reporting information on required Form 12b-25 filings.
- The SEC charged fund manager and former race car team owner Andrew T. Franzone with multimillion-dollar investment fraud and misappropriation scheme.
- The SEC filed charges against Spot Tech House Ltd., a binary options trading platform, and two of its top executives with defrauding investors out of more than USD $100 million through unregistered online sales.
- The SEC charged seven individuals with defrauding investors out of more than USD $16 million through an oil-and-gas market manipulation scheme.
United Kingdom:
- The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) commenced criminal proceedings against 2 individuals for conducting unauthorized regulated business activities in the UK.
- The FCA banned and fined UK financial adviser Simon Varley £68,300 for providing unqualified, dishonest financial advice to retail customers.
Hong Kong:
- The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) fined Optimas Capital Limited $1.05 million over multiple failures with their short position reporting processes.
- The Market Misconduct Tribunal (MMT) sanctioned two former executives of Asia Telemedia Limited (ATML), now known as Yunfeng Financial Group Limited, for insider dealing.
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Brittany Whitmore, PR & Communications
Brittany is the founder of Exvera Communications, which specializes in PR for organizations in the innovation and technology industries. In 2017, Brittany was named to BC Business Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30. Brittany was previously communications lead for Procurify, a...
Piotr Piasecki, Head of Research & Development
Piotr is a leading, world-recognized voice in the blockchain sector as an academic, programmer, advisor, and thought leader. He boasts an extensive programming and software architecture background with a specialty in blockchain and financial technology. Piotr received...
Matthias Kucharska-Huelsmann, Systems Architect
Matthias is an entrepreneurial business strategist with over 10 years of consulting and project management experience and joins iComply as Systems Architect. He has worked with blue chip companies around the world and has a proven track record of successful project...












