SEC claims that AutoChina and the other defendants engaged in the scheme after lenders offered AutoChina unfavorable terms for a stock-backed loan due to low trading volume in its stock.
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged AutoChina International Limited (OTC: AUTCF) and 11 investors, including a senior executive and director at the China-based firm, with conducting a market manipulation scheme designed to “create the false appearance of a liquid and active market for AutoChina’s stock.”
The government agency that overlooked the $50-billion Madoff stock manipulation and Ponzi scheme, among other stunning lapses in regulatory responsibility, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against the People’s Republic of China firm.
AutoChina is China’s largest commercial vehicle sales, servicing, leasing, and company said the SEC’s complaint is without merit, thereby setting up an intricate and lengthy court battle with the watchdog that does not bark. SEC claimed that AutoChina senior executive and director Hui Kai Yan, a former AutoChina manager, and others fraudulently traded AutoChina’s stock to boost its daily trading volume.
“Starting in October 2010, the defendants and others deposited more than $60 million into U.S.-based brokerage accounts and engaged in hundreds of fraudulent trades over the next three months through these accounts and accounts with a Hong Kong-based broker-dealer,” SEC alleged.
The fraudulent trades included matched orders, where one account sold shares to another account at the same time and for the same price, and so-called wash trades, which resulted in no change of beneficial ownership of the shares.
SEC claims that AutoChina and the other defendants engaged in the scheme after lenders offered AutoChina unfavorable terms for a stock-backed loan due to low trading volume in its stock.
“AutoChina and the other defendants engaged in a brazen manipulation of AutoChina’s stock to obtain favorable loan terms,” said Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “The SEC will hold accountable publicly-traded companies including foreign companies that violate the U.S. securities laws and disrupt the U.S. capital markets.”
The SEC complaint alleges that in the three months before the defendants opened the U.S.-based brokerage accounts, the average daily trading volume of AutoChina’s stock was approximately 18,000 shares. From 1 November 2010 to 31 January 2011, the average daily trading volume increased to more than 139,000 shares. On some days, the defendants and related accounts’ trading accounted for as much as 70% of the trading of AutoChina’s stock.
According to the SEC’s complaint, several of the defendants are related to AutoChina’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, who at the time of the scheme owned more than 57% of the company. Three of the defendants are siblings of AutoChina’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and another is married to one of his siblings.
