(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced fraud charges against a hedge fund manager and his firm accused of paying terminally ill individuals to use their names on purportedly joint brokerage accounts so he could purchase investments on behalf of his hedge fund and redeem them early by invoking a survivor\u2019s option.<\/p>\n
An SEC examination of investment advisory firm Eden Arc Capital Management uncovered the scheme alleged by the SEC Enforcement Division in an order instituted today. Donald Lathen of New York City allegedly used contacts at nursing homes and hospices to identify patients with less than six months to live, and he successfully recruited at least 60 of them by paying $10,000 apiece to use their names on accounts. When a patient died, Lathen allegedly redeemed investments in the accounts by falsely representing to issuers that he and the terminally ill individuals were joint owners of the accounts. Lathen\u2019s hedge fund was the true owner of the survivor\u2019s option investments. Issuers paid out more than $100 million in early redemptions as a result of the alleged misrepresentations and omissions by Lathen and Eden Arc Capital.<\/p>\n
The SEC Enforcement Division further alleges that Lathen violated the custody rule by failing to properly place the hedge fund\u2019s cash and securities in an account under the fund\u2019s name or in an account containing only clients\u2019 funds and securities, under the investment adviser\u2019s name as agent or trustee for the client.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe allege that Lathen deceived issuers by falsely claiming that he and the deceased jointly owned the bonds when the hedge fund was the true owner of the investments,\u201d said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC\u2019s New York Regional Office. \u201cLathen allegedly put hedge fund client assets at risk by keeping them in accounts in his and the terminally ill individuals\u2019 names rather than following the custody rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SEC Enforcement Division alleges that Lathen, Eden Arc Capital Management, and Eden Arc Capital Advisors violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5. The Enforcement Division further alleges that Eden Arc Capital Management violated Section 206(4) of the Advisers Act and Rule 206(4)-2, and Lathen aided and abetted and caused those violations.<\/p>\n
The matter will be scheduled for a public hearing before an administrative law judge, who will prepare an initial decision stating what, if any, remedial actions are appropriate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced fraud charges against a hedge fund manager and his firm accused of paying terminally ill individuals to use their names on purportedly joint brokerage accounts so he could purchase investments on behalf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048,16047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news","category-insider-trading-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54033,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54032\/revisions\/54033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}