Wednesday, March 14, 2012

SharesPost Pays Fines To SEC

SharesPost, the online marketplace for private company stock, along with CEO Greg Brogger, are paying fines in the firm's trading of private company shares, the SEC said Wednesday. According to a release from the SEC, SharesPost is paying $80,000, and Brogger is paying $20,000 in fines, as part of an SEC order which found that SharesPost and Brogger violated Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act of 1934. The fines were due to the firm's facilitation of securities transactions, before it acquired a broker-dealer firm and its membership was approved by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The SEC announced the action as part of a larger enforcement effort over firms trading private company shares without proper clearances from the SEC. The SEC said that the newly emerging secondary marketplace for pre-IPO stock "presents risk for even savvy investors", and that SharesPost "skirted" important broker-dealer provisions in its operations. SharesPost is now based in San Francisco, but had previously been in Santa Monica, where it was co-founded by Zag's Scott Painter.

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