SEC Settles With Calif. Lawyer Over Opinion Letter
A California lawyer incurred the Securities and Exchange Commission's ire for an opinion letter that led to a client's pump-and-dump stock scheme. According to the SEC, Kenneth Christison opined that client Michael Paloma did not have to register shares of four so-called microcap companies with regulators. Paloma used Christison's letter to persuade a transfer agent to issue millions of shares. The client then dumped the stock on the open market after artificially inflating their prices via spam e-mail.
