FITUG e.V.
Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft
FITUG e.V.Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft |
|
http://www.lawnewsnetwork.com/practice/techlaw/news/A18579-2000Mar14.html
SEC May Lack Basis to Bar Stock Touting
Some view Web chat boost of share prices as naughty but legal
The National Law Journal
March 14, 2000
Early in the Securities and Exchange Commission's Internet enforcement efforts, agency staffers came across a problematic Web site. Eager to shut it down without "making a federal case of it," John Reed Stark, the chief of Internet enforcement at the SEC, called the site's designer and launched into a reading of his rights. The alleged offender interrupted, "Wait a minute -- I'm only 13." Stark and the others on the call were shocked, but figured out how to sanction the boy: "We told his mother," Stark said.
[...]
Some say privately that the SEC is stretching the law to fit what is the alleged bad behavior: launching a Web site to tout a few thinly traded stocks that Colt and the other defendant had purchased -- and for which they had executed sell orders before making the recommendations. One lawyer posited that such conduct can be enjoined only when the person making the recommendation is an investment adviser who owes a fiduciary duty to his clients. But without that duty, the conduct cannot be considered illegal "front-running."
[...]