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The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday updated its list of fictitious regulators and firms falsely claiming to be registered, licensed and/or located in the U.S., along with entities that impersonate actual U.S. registered securities companies.
Included in the fresh list are 25 new soliciting entities and four phony regulators: Board of Financial Affairs, Finance Regulation Board, New York Compliance Regulatory Board and US International Registry & Compliance Agency.
In comparison, last year's updated list included 11 firms, four fake versions of real firms and nine fictitious regulators.
The entities on the updated list came to the SEC's attention through investor complaints and is known as the Public Alert: Unregistered Soliciting Entities (PAUSE) list.
The latest additions are firms that SEC staff discovered were providing inaccurate information about their affiliation, location or registration to solicit primarily non-U.S. investors, the SEC noted. Under U.S. securities laws, firms that solicit investors generally are required to register with the SEC and meet minimum financial standards and disclosure, reporting and record-keeping requirements, it pointed out.
