NY Court enters consent judgment in SEC case against Ponzi scammer Renwick Haddow
The settlement, however, does not determine any monetary penalties to be imposed on Haddow, given the ongoing criminal proceedings against him.
Shortly after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a proposal for a consent judgment against Renwick Haddow, known for orchestrating fraudulent schemes such as Bar Works and Bitcoin Store Inc, the New York Southern District Court has approved the proposal.
On September 10, 2019, Judge Lorna G. Schofield signed an Order approving the consent judgment. As per the Order, Haddow is permanently restrained and enjoined from violating, directly or indirectly, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b, by using any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails, or of any facility of any national securities exchange, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security:
- a) to employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud;
- b) to make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading; or
- c)to engage in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person.
The Order, as FinanceFeeds has reported earlier, leaves open the issue of monetary relief – disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and civil monetary penalties – to be decided at a later time, either through settlement or by motion before the Court.
The SEC explains that leaving open the issue of disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and civil penalty to be decided by the Court at a later time upon motion of the Commission is fair and reasonable under the circumstances. Among other things, in determining the appropriate amount of disgorgement Haddow should pay in this action, the Court may wish to consider any order of forfeiture imposed at sentencing in the related criminal case to avoid double-payment of Haddow’s ill-gotten gains. The Court may also take into account any civil fine or sentence imposed in the related criminal action before making a determination as to the appropriate civil penalty against Haddow in the civil matter brought by the SEC.
In May this year, U.S. Attorney Berman announced the unsealing of a guilty plea, on May 8, 2019, by Renwick Haddow, a/k/a “Jonathan Black,” in which he admitted to his own involvement in the fraudulent scheme related to Bar Works, as well as to making material misrepresentations and misappropriating investment funds in another company created by him called Bitcoin Store Inc.
Haddow was originally charged in June 2017 and extradited from Morocco in April 2018. He pleaded guilty to an Information charging him with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and is cooperating with the Government in the criminal investigation.
