Following an investigation sparked by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ announcement that Netflix subscribers had passed the 1 billion hours viewed milestone, the SEC today announced that in specific circumstances, it can be okay to announce key company information and stats on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. The one caveat they stipulate is that investors must be primed to watch those… → Read More
Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt, the company today reported in an SEC filing, plans to sell about 3.2 million of the Class A common stock he currently owns through a stock trading plan, which would reduce his share in the company by about 42%. At Google’s current stock price, this transaction would be worth about $2.5 billion. → Read More
Editor’s note: Jason Best and Sherwood Neiss led the U.S. fight to legalize debt and equity based crowdfunding, co-authored Crowdfund Investing for Dummies and foundedCrowdfund Capital Advisors where they provide strategy and technology services those seeking to benefit from crowdfund investing.
Hopes for startup crowfunding will have to wait for the federal bureaucracy to give it their… → Read More
One SEC accountant tried to access porn 1,800 times in two weeks, another tried 16,000 times in one month. In another case, an SEC attorney spent eight hours a day looking at and downloading porn— as reported by the Associated Press and ABC News— when his disk drive was full he resorted to CDs and DVDs. Gross.
Over the last five years, the SEC has launched “33 probes of employees looking at… → Read More
Good news for P2P lending and trading platform Prosper as it concludes its 9-month hiatus during which it was not allowed to continue its loan operations in the United States.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is now greenlighting Prosper to facilitate peer-to-peer lending in 14 states with more on the way, borrowing nearly nationwide. Prosper is now the first and thus only Internet… → Read More
It looks like the Security and Exchanges Commission is looking into Apple’s handling of the whole Steve Jobs health situation. If it’s found that Apple deliberately mislead its investors over the status of Jobs’ health then Apple could well be in a spot of trouble. Well, so says Bloomberg, whose Web site is straight out of 1996. → Read More
Last month, peer-to-peer lender Prosper stopped all new lending on its site because of scrutiny by the SEC. Prosper agreed to register under the Securities Act, a process which can take months.
Yesterday, the SEC issued its formal cease-and-desist letter (embedded below or download PDF), outlining its reasoning for characterizing Prosper as a seller of investment, something prosper had… → Read More
When most private companies reach 500 shareholders, they trigger an SEC rule which effectively treats them like a public company and requires them to some of the same reporting requirements. Google ran into this issue just before it went public. Now Facebook is quickly reaching that same threshold as it continues to hire and allows employees to sell shares to outside investors.
But in a letter… → Read More
Whoever made that false Steve-Jobs-had-a-heart-attack claim is going to be in a lot of trouble now that the SEC is getting involved. The independent agency is looking to see if the false report was done maliciously. That is to say, it’s trying to figure out whether or not the person who posted the claim in order to profit from the resulting drop in stock price. (Apple’s stock went down… → Read More
For several years, Sun CEO, Jonathan Schwartz has lobbied the SEC to allow disclosure of financial information through corporate blogs. In a landmark announcement, it seems that Mr. Schwartz may indeed get his wish, and with it, a historical decision that could break the age-old shackles that bound businesses to traditional media and distribution channels in order to satisfy full disclosure. In a… → Read More
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