The Securities and Exchange Commisison is charging vFinance Investment Inc., its President Richard Campanella, and former New Jersey Branch Manager Nicholas Thompson for failing to keep records and show them to Commission staff. The SEC’s need for the e-records stemmed from possible securities fraud involving a company that vFinance is the market maker for.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is accusing Thompson of erasing documents, e-mails, and instant messages from his computer’s hard drive even though he knew that the records had been requested by the commission. By law and according to vFinance’s policies, e-mails and instant messaging communications with clients must be preserved.
The SEC says that vFinance Investment President Campanella should have made sure that the documents were being preserved. He was reportedly “on notice” that vFinance was not keeping Thompson’s business records.
The SEC says that Campanella should have made sure that the document requests were met. For more than 18 months, Campanella allegedly failed to search for and produce the requested documents.
The SEC will determine whether it will fine the brokerage firm, Campanella, and Thompson.
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Related Web Resources:
Enforcement Proceedings, SEC.gov, January 3, 2008
vFinance Investments Inc.