The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is involved in a number of battles over what it has deemed have been illegal securities offerings. Telegram, Kik and many more are recipients of the financial regulator’s ire, but another one is facing a newly-reinstated massive attack by the commission and it apparently keeps digging its grave deeper. The SEC had accused Blockvest of offering unregistered securities and now asserts that its founder, Reginald Buddy Ringgold III, lied in court to try to cover his activity.
Blockvest raised $2.5 million ahead of an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018. However, it didn’t take long for the SEC to claim that the company had illegally been offering securities for its BLV token, and went after the company to hold it accountable. A court initially sided with Blockvest, asserting that the commission didn’t properly prove its case, but that decision was later overturned.
The SEC has now stepped up once again, providing additional details of the case and alleging that Ringgold had provided false information to the courts previously. That information was what had compelled the courts to side with the company and deny the SEC’s motion, but the new details are enough for the SEC to want to drop the hammer harder than ever.
Blockvest now stands accused of having “engaged in willful and bad faith deception” and submitting false documents to the court. Among the evidence is the claim made by Blockvest that no tokens were actually sold, but the SEC says it has evidence that Ringgold reached out to investors, asking them to lie to the courts. It also says that Blockvest turned to at least one affiliate and asked it to tell the commission that a $147,000 payment it received was for company development, not for the sale of tokens.
The SEC, in trying to set the record straight regarding its actions against Blockvest, produced the new evidence, stating, “As a result [of the false declarations], the Court denied the preliminary injunction, and on reconsideration imposed a subset of the relief requested by the SEC. Thus for the past year, defendants have not been enjoined from all of the charged misconduct (including Exchange Act antifraud violations and Securities Act registration violations), exposing investors to an ongoing risk of harm, and defendants’ assets have not been frozen, making any recovery of lost investor funds unlikely.”
It now wants permanent sanctions against Blockvest. If accepted, Ringgold will find out what happens when you get on the wrong side of government regulators.
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