SEC obtains final judgment against proprietors of PlexCoin ICO
The defendants are ordered to disgorge $4.56 million in ill-gotten gains from the PlexCoin initial coin offering.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that it has obtained a final judgment against the proprietors of the PlexCoin Initial Coin Offering (ICO). As FinanceFeeds has reported, the regulator has been seeking the Court’s approval of a proposed consent judgment for the past months.
Let’s recall that, the SEC’s action against PlexCorps, aka PlexCoin, and its proprietors Dominic Lacroix and Sabrina Paradis-Royer, was launched in December 2017. According to the complaint, the defendants fraudulently raised millions of dollars in virtual and fiat currency from the unregistered sales of so-called “PlexCoin”. The operations of PlexCorps were based on false and misleading statements to potential and actual investors, including misrepresentations about the size and scale of PlexCorps’ operations, the use of funds raised in the PlexCoin ICO, and the amount of funds raised in the PlexCoin ICO.
On October 2, 2019, the New York Eastern District Court entered a final judgment against PlexCorps, Lacroix, and Paradis-Royer. In the final judgment, the defendants did not admit or deny the allegations in the SEC’s complaint.
The defendants are enjoined from further violations of Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule l0b-5 thereunder, and Lacroix and Paradis-Royer are additionally enjoined from participating in any digital-securities offerings. All defendants are ordered to disgorge, on a joint and several basis, $4,563,468 in ill-gotten gains from the PlexCoin ICO plus $348,145 in prejudgment interest, and Lacroix and Paradis-Royer are ordered to each pay a $1,000,000 civil penalty. Lacroix also is permanently barred from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded entity.
The final judgment also requires the defendants to forego their rights to the entirety of the investor funds seized by a receiver appointed by the Superior Court of Quebec, totaling approximately $4 million, as well as $800,000 in investor funds held by US-based entities that were subject to an asset freeze issued by the District Court. At present, the SEC anticipates coordinating any distribution to harmed investors with the Autorité des marchés financiers of Quebec.
